Senate Passes $95 Billion Aid Package to Ukraine, Israel

The US Senate passed a $95 billion national security package to aid Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and other US allies 70-29 on early Tuesday (Feb. 13) after a months-long debate that deeply divided congressional Republicans, with some of them voting to approve the bill, while 29 Trump-aligned Republican senators rejected it.

"These past few months have been a great test for the U.S. Senate, to see if we could escape the centrifugal pull of partisanship and summon the will to defend Western democracy when it mattered most," Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said after the bill was passed. "Today, the Senate has resoundingly passed the test."

"History settles every account," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell added. "And today, on the value of American leadership and strength, history will record that the Senate did not blink."

However, the legislation might not be able to pass on the other side of Capitol Hill after House Speaker Mike Johnson preemptively rejected it on Monday night (Feb. 12), saying in a statement that the package's failure to address US border security made it a nonstarter in the House.

"In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters," he said. "America deserves better than the Senate's status quo."

Johnson and other House leaders were responsible for failing an earlier version of the legislation including sweeping border security measures and other reforms, the Washington Post reported.

Supporting Allies vs. Border Security

The aid package has been anticipated by the White House since US President Joe Biden appealed for the funding in October, shortly after Israel came under attack by Hamas.

Johnson and House GOP lawmakers demanded that a border security package be included in it to gain votes from them. However, they have since abandoned the proposal amid opposition from former president Donald Trump, who has primarily focused on the border crisis as a core campaign issue and openly complained that the border reforms would only help Biden and the Democrats.

In a recent rally, Trump took advantage of the unpopularity of Ukraine funding by publicly encouraging Russia to do "whatever the hell they want" to NATO nations that he viewed were not spending enough money on defense. Top NATO officials have since criticized his comments.

Trump also explicitly opposed the foreign aid package, saying in a recent social media post that he believed that any aid from Washington should be given as a loan.

There are efforts to utilize loopholes to go around Johnson and pass the bill through a Democratic-led discharge petition. Democrats would need to gather at least four signatures from Republicans supportive of Ukraine funding to be able to introduce the petition, which probably would not happen until the end of the month, given the congressional calendar.

However, not all Democrats in the House were supportive of the Israeli government's handling of the war in Gaza. This meant that enough Republicans would need to support the bill to make up for those Democrats who would not vote for the bill over the aid to Israel.