The Senate on Sunday pushed a $95 billion emergency aid bill for Ukraine and Israel past a critical hurdle, with a bipartisan vote that kept it on track for passage within days.
The vote was 67-27 to move forward on the package, which would dedicate $60.1 billion to helping Kyiv in its war against Russian aggression, send $14.1 billion to Israel for its war against Hamas and fund almost $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for civilians in conflict zones, while addressing threats to the Indo-Pacific region. In a rare Sunday session, 18 Republicans joined Democrats to advance the measure, which leaders hope the Senate will approve as early as Tuesday.
“It’s no exaggeration to say the eyes of the world are on the United States Senate,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said on the floor on Sunday, appealing to his colleagues to back the bill. He maintained that U.S. allies “don’t have the luxury of pretending that the world’s most dangerous aggressors are someone else’s problem and neither do we.”
This is a dramatically hopeful article for a bill that will die in the House. Yeah it’s nice to hear that the Senate is still capable of submitting useful legislation, but it’s meaningless if the House remains in the hands of Trump-loyal Republicans.
But it’s strange that they’d work through the weekend to pass it if it’s just DOA in the house. Republicans seem to think that attempting to add border provisions but being denied by Democrats is more beneficial to them politically than actually passing those provisions. Hopefully it passes, but I’m skeptical too.
House Republicans aren’t thinking, which is the problem. They wanted the border provisions because Orange Man said “Build a Wall,” but then Orange Man told them to not pass any legislature, so now they won’t. Implying any additional intelligence is a gesture in anthropomorphism. Dems having a majority in the Senate and actually being able to work with the handful of Republicans with functioning brains is great, but I wouldn’t take it as a sign of coordination from the Republicans.