Ukraine, Israel aid in jeopardy amid Biden-GOP border battle

Congress has no clear path to approve aid to Ukraine and Israel amid intense GOP opposition to a Senate border security deal and few apparent fallback options.

The upper chamber this week unveiled legislation combining tougher border security measures with military aid for Ukraine and Israel, among broader foreign assistance. But before the ink was dry on the long-anticipated Senate bill text released Sunday night, House Republican leadership stuck a knife in it, declaring that it would not get a House vote — even if it can clear the upper chamber.

Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the House will vote only on billions of dollars for Israel — considered by some to be a less urgent component of the Senate package, but also the most politically popular within Johnson’s divided GOP conference. 

But on Monday the White House said President Biden would veto the stand-alone Israel aid bill. And separating out portions of the package, or attempting some long-shot move to force a vote, is far from straightforward due to internal disagreement in both parties. 

Republicans, for instance, are divided over Ukraine aid. Democrats are at odds over new assistance for Israel. And both parties are split over the border changes, with liberals griping that they’re too tough on migrants and conservatives protesting that they’re not tough enough.

The complex web of opposition from various factions to different provisions, combined with cross-chamber disagreements over a package or piecemeal approach, have diminished the chances that Congress can pass Ukraine and Israel aid in their current form. 

And there’s no obvious Plan B that might fare better.

“I’m not sure … this is going to get out of the Senate, and at the same time, the Speaker has said it’s dead on arrival,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News on Monday. 

“I applaud him for trying to get something done,” McCaul added, referring to Sen. James Lankford (Okla.), the lead GOP negotiator. “But at the same time, I don’t think this is going to be a fix.”

In addition to $60 billion for aid to Ukraine and $14.1 billion in aid to Israel, the deal includes $2.4 billion to respond to conflict in the Red Sea, $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for those in conflict zones to include Gaza and Ukraine, $4.8 billion to support Indo-Pacific partners such as Taiwan and $20.2 billion to enhance security measures at the U.S.-Mexico border.

While Republicans once suggested border and migration policy changes were a condition of approving the supplemental foreign aid, the compromises reached in the Senate now face intense pushback from Republicans — and from former President Trump. The former president said Monday that border changes “should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape, or form,” urging Republicans: “Don’t be STUPID!!!”

The top four House GOP leaders said in a joint statement Monday that the Senate bill would be “dead on arrival in the House.”

Johnson, a stalwart Trump ally, said over the weekend that he would bring up an alternative plan to approve aid to Israel this week, changing course from his insistence that the Senate take up a bill the House passed in November that paired $14.3 billion in Israel aid with cuts to IRS funding. Instead, he said the House will take up a $17.6 billion Israel aid bill with no funding offsets this week.

Johnson denied on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the new Israel bill was a move to try to kill the Senate border deal, saying that he changed course because Democrats will not consider the version with IRS offsets and that “the time is urgent.”

However, that plan is facing pushback from within the House GOP, endangering the legislation.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he is “very concerned” about the strategy to bring up a stand-alone Israel bill, suggesting that moving that portion alone might cut off paths for Ukraine funding to get Congressional approval.

And he’s hardly alone. 

Democrats are also warning against a stand-alone Israel package, which is sure to be opposed by liberals critical of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, as well as more moderate lawmakers wary that separating the various pieces of the Senate legislation would imperil them all. 

“The worst thing in the world for getting help for either one of them is to separate them,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, referring specifically to the Ukraine and Israel aid. “That, strategically, would be a bad move.”

Johnson told reporters on Monday that Biden’s veto threat on the standalone Israel was “outrageous,” calling it a “betrayal of our great ally and friend Israel and their time of desperate need.”

Meanwhile, the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus board criticized the proposed Israel aid package because it does not have offsets — complicating any effort to bring up the bill under a regular process, given members of the group have often tanked party-line procedural rule votes in protest of various legislation in this Congress. 

Johnson has been able to get around those procedural issues caused by internal GOP opposition by passing legislation through a fast-track process that requires support from Democrats. Before Biden’s veto threat, it was expected that the Israel bill comes up under that suspension of the rules process, House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters, requiring two-thirds support in the House and no opportunity to amend the legislation

But with the Senate package pending and Biden’s promise to veto, Johnson might not be able to count on that cross-party support. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in a letter to colleagues Sunday criticized Johnson’s move.

“There is reason to believe that this eleventh-hour standalone bill is a cynical attempt to undermine the Senate’s bipartisan effort, given that House Republicans have been ordered by the former president not to pass any border security legislation or assistance for Ukraine,” Jeffries said in the letter.

The border package poses its own political challenges for Jeffries and other Democratic leaders who are fighting to flip control of the lower chamber in November’s elections. 

On one hand, they’re facing pressure to endorse the Senate agreement in order to create a united front with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and President Biden, both of whom have endorsed the legislation and are attacking Republicans who oppose it. Enacting the package would also provide Biden with an important policy victory in an election year when there will be few opportunities to move major legislation. 

On the other hand, a host of House liberals have already rejected the deal, warning that it goes too far to restrict border entry for migrants fleeing volatile conditions at home. The liberal opponents represent powerful constituencies, including the Progressive Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus, and they’re sure to exert their own pressure on Jeffries and his team to oppose the package in the name of human rights. 

“For migrants who are able to seek asylum, they would now be subject to unrealistic standards and timelines under which to present their asylum claims, forcing too many people back to certain death, discrimination, or other harm,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Progressive Caucus, said in a statement.

Amid the long impasse, some House Democrats have discussed the possibility of using a procedural tool, known as a discharge petition, to break the logjam for the sake of getting at least parts of the Senate package to Biden’s desk. The petition requires the signatures of at least half of the House — 218 members — to force legislation to the floor even when the majority party leaders oppose it. 

But that, too, is a long shot, given that liberal Democrats are balking at the border security provisions, pro-Palestine members are wary of more military assistance for Israel and that there’s been no indication that any House Republicans — who would be required to endorse the petition to reach the 218 number — are willing to buck Johnson on such a sensitive topic. 

In an interview with Fox News last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) warned that the political fallout of such a move would be severe.

“If any of our Republican colleagues want to cross the line and sign a discharge petition and vote with the Democrats on that,” she said, “well, good luck in their primary elections and good luck getting reelected.”