Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) floated a proposal Monday that would come with support to Ukraine and border safety reform, whereas Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hopes to have a vote on a invoice tying Ukraine and the border to help for Israel as quickly as subsequent week.
Negotiations round overseas support proceed to unfold on Capitol Hill as bipartisan assist for Israel is plentiful, however assist for a Ukraine bundle is skinny amongst conservative Republicans. Nonetheless, Johnson, who oversaw the development of a standalone Israel support invoice with cuts to the Inner Income Service (IRS) in early November, indicated to reporters he was open to negotiations round a Ukraine invoice that will additionally handle issues on the southern border.
Talking at a press convention in Sarasota Bradenton Worldwide Airport in Florida on Monday, which was captured by WFLA, Johnson advised reporters that “negotiations are happening in earnest” together with his counterparts within the Senate and that Israel and Ukraine are each priorities:
Pay attention, Israel is a high precedence for the USA, and supporting our ally there’s crucial. It’s one of many first issues we did. In reality, we handed the bipartisan Israel assist bundle out of the Home some time in the past, proper – not lengthy after I took the gavel a couple of month in the past. It’s been sitting within the Senate on Chuck Schumer’s desk, and so we’re encouraging him to get that finished. Ukraine is one other precedence.
Johnson added, “We are able to’t permit Vladimir Putin to march via Europe, and we perceive the need of aiding there.”
Nonetheless, within the Speaker’s view, support for Ukraine can be contingent on reform to the border amid rampant unlawful immigration below the Biden administration:
What we’ve mentioned is that if there’s to be further help to Ukraine, which most members of Congress imagine is vital, we’ve to additionally work in altering our personal border coverage, and so there’s been a number of considerate negotiation ongoing with that. I believe most of our Senate colleagues acknowledge that these two issues want to maneuver collectively as a result of we owe that to the American folks.
Whereas Johnson is floating a invoice that addresses each the border and Ukraine support — other than the Israel support that has already handed the Home — Schumer and Democrats are in search of to bundle all three points collectively together with support for Taiwan. Schumer has mentioned he wouldn’t take up the Home’s Israel support bundle, and Biden’s White Home introduced he wouldn’t signal it ought to it attain his desk.
In a letter to colleagues on Sunday, Schumer shared that he hopes to vote on a Senate bundle for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the border as quickly as subsequent week. He additionally knowledgeable his colleagues there would “be an all-Senators labeled briefing within the coming days.”
“I urge each Senator to attend,” he added.
The framework for Schumer and Democrats bundles the identical 4 points that had been on the middle of the Biden administration’s support request in October, which sought $61.5 billion from Congress for Ukraine, $23.5 billion for humanitarian and navy support for Israel, $7.4 billion for Taiwan, and one other $13.6 billion for asylum officers and border patrol brokers.
Whereas giving an Oval Workplace handle forward of the official request, Biden likened Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hamas.
Biden says ”The assault on Israel echoes practically 20 months of struggle inflicted on the folks of Ukraine, folks actually badly harm, since Putin launched his all out invasion” earlier than asking Congress for support for each international locations. pic.twitter.com/JWnxiGvK6f
— Greg Worth (@greg_price11) October 20, 2023
“They each need to utterly annihilate a neighboring democracy, utterly annihilate it,” Biden mentioned. “Hamas to maintain a objective for present is a destruction of the State of Israel and the homicide of Jewish folks.”
“In the meantime, Putin denies Ukraine has or ever had actual statehood. He claims the Soviet Union created Ukraine,” he added.
What Biden is doing is disgusting. He’s utilizing useless youngsters in Israel to promote his disastrous Ukraine coverage to skeptical Individuals.
They aren’t the identical international locations, they aren’t the identical issues, and this effort to make use of Israel for political cowl is offensive.
Hell no.
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) October 20, 2023
Politico’s Rachel Bade, Ryan Lizza, and Eugene Daniels famous Monday in Politico Playbook that “the White Home is insisting that its multifaceted funding request transfer in a single piece attributable to fears that separating out Israel funding — with its overwhelming bipartisan assist — would imply letting the extra controversial Ukraine support languish.”