U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to the media at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on April 17, 2024, after the Senate rejected House Republicans’ impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
The Senate passed a package providing billions in aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan on Tuesday, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden to become law after six months of political wrangling.
The final result was 79-18, a stirring display of bipartisanship at a time of deep political divisions.
“The tireless work of six long months has paid off,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after an earlier procedural vote in the Senate.
Now that the bill has passed, it goes to Biden, who said he would sign it into law on Wednesday after the House passed the package as four separate bills on Saturday.
The bill will “strengthen our national security and send a message to the world about the power of American leadership: We stand resolutely for democracy and freedom and against tyranny and oppression,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday evening.
The funding includes about $60 billion for Ukraine aid, $26 billion for Israel and $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific security.
In terms of spending, the legislation is similar to the $95 billion foreign aid bill passed by the Senate in February, which has been effectively stalled in the House in the weeks since.
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But this bill also contains several other foreign policy proposals, including a measure to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a nationwide ban on the app. The provision would give ByteDance nine months to sell, although Biden could extend that time frame to a year.
According to an internal memo obtained by NBC News, a source within the company said TikTok would launch a “legal challenge” if the bill were to become law.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the guise of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again push through a ban bill that would trample on the free speech rights of 170 million Americans,” a TikTok spokesperson said Saturday after the passage of the bill House of Representatives the bill.
According to disclosure reports, TikTok and ByteDance have collectively spent over $7 million on lobbying and advertising so far this year to stop Congress from passing the law forcing the sale.
The foreign aid package has also been the subject of fierce intraparty contention within the Republican Party, which is one of the main reasons the bill has been stalled on Capitol Hill since Biden first proposed it in October.
House Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have threatened to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in part for approving this foreign aid, calling it a “total betrayal.” to X. In March she said she filed a motion to remove the speaker but has not yet pushed through the forced vote.
These political threats, as well as an increasingly razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives, led Johnson to effectively introduce the Senate’s $95 billion foreign aid bill for weeks.
But Johnson decided last week to end the foreign aid stalemate after Iran carried out an attempted attack on April 13, leaving the speaker to face renewed bipartisan pressure to push forward the funding.
And despite Greene’s threats, Johnson’s job is somewhat secured by former President Donald Trump’s public support.
“Look, we have a majority of one, okay? It’s not like he can do whatever he wants. “I think he’s a very good person,” Trump said in a radio interview on “The John Fredericks Show” on Monday. Evening. “I think he’s trying really hard.”
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2024-04-24 02:13:13
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