Senate Passes $95.3B Aid Package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan With Nothing for U.S. Border Security
Chris Menahan
The Senate worked through the dead of night on Monday to pass a $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan with nothing for securing the US border.
JUST IN – U.S. Senate passes a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without border security provisions while most Americans are still asleep. pic.twitter.com/9iNJTFkEWt
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 13, 2024
MORE – 22 Republicans joined Democrats, voting yes: McConnell, Thune, Boozman, Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn, Cramer, Crapo, Ernst, Grassley, Hoeven, Kennedy, Moran, Murkowski, Risch, Rounds, Sullivan, Tillis, Wicker, Young and Romney.
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 13, 2024
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the “national security bill” was passed to advance “our security, our values, and our democracy.”
BREAKING NEWS:
The Senate has just passed the national security bill for our security, our values, and our democracy.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 13, 2024
The previous version of the bill went down in flames due to the border provisions enacting de facto open borders. Rather than grant the American people any concessions, the Senate decided to rework the bill to give us absolutely nothing as a giant “F you.”
“22 Republicans voted with nearly all Democrats to pass the package 70-29,” the AP reports:
Two Democrats, Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Peter Welch of Vermont, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, voted against it. The progressive lawmakers have objected to sending offensive weaponry to Israel.
“I cannot in good conscience support sending billions of additional taxpayer dollars for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military campaign in Gaza,” Welch said. “It’s a campaign that has killed and wounded a shocking number of civilians. It’s created a massive humanitarian crisis.”
The bill is allegedly going to be dead on arrival in the House:
[House Speaker Mike Johnson], R-La., said in a statement Monday that because the foreign aid package lacks border security provisions, it is “silent on the most pressing issue facing our country.” It was the latest — and potentially most consequential — sign of opposition to the Ukraine aid from House GOP leadership, who had rejected the bipartisan border plan as a “non-starter,” contributing to its rapid demise.
“Now, 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,” Johnson said. “America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”
He’d better follow through.
My statement on Senate’s failure to address the most critical aspect of national security supplemental legislation: pic.twitter.com/ENjJ0WzKsK
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 13, 2024
