(WASHINGTON, DC) – The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to move forward with $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, bringing the bill to the brink of approval after months of delays and a contentious internal debate over the degree of US involvement abroad.
The vote to end the filibuster drew support from 80 senators — 10 more than supported the bill when the Senate first approved it in February — virtually guaranteeing that the bill will soon reach President Biden’s desk. A final vote could take place as early as Tuesday night.
The $61 billion for Ukraine comes at a time when the war-torn country desperately needs new firepower and at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin has intensified his attacks. Ukrainian soldiers fought to hold the front lines as Russia seized momentum on the battlefield and gained significant territory.
Bidencounted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday the U.S. to send badly needed air defense weaponry once the legislation is passed. The House approved the package Saturday in a series of four votes, sending it back to the Senate for final approval.
“The president assured me that the package will be approved quickly and that it will be powerful, strengthening our air defense as well as long-range and artillery capabilities,” Zelenskyy said in an X post.
In fact, US officials have said that around a billion dollars in aid could be on the way soon, with most of it being made available in the coming weeks.
The legislation would also send $26 billion in wartime assistance to Israel and humanitarian aid to the citizens of Gaza, and $8 billion to combat China in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. In an effort to get more votes, Republicans in the House majority also added a bill to the package that could ban social media app TikTok in the US if its Chinese owners do not sell their stake within a year.
The foreign aid part of the bill is similar to what the Senate approved in February with some minor changes and additions, including the TikTok law and a stipulation that $9 billion of economic assistance to Ukraine is in the form of “forgivable loans.”
These changes appear to have brought nine more Republicans on board, meaning a clear majority of the Senate GOP conference supports the legislation. The February vote on an earlier version of the bill was 70 votes to 29.
Opening the Senate on Tuesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the next vote would take “six months to complete.”
“Let us not keep our friends around the world waiting a moment longer,” Schumer said.
The package has had broad support in Congress since Biden first requested the money last summer. But congressional leaders have faced fierce opposition from a growing number of conservatives who question U.S. involvement in foreign wars and argue that Congress should focus instead on increasing migration across the U.S.-U.S. border. the Mexico.
The growing divide in the Republican Party between conservatives who are skeptical of aid and the more traditional, “Reagan Republicans” who strongly support it, could prove career-defining for the two top Republican leaders.
Senate Republican Party Leader Mitch McConnell who made aid to Ukraine a top prioritysaid last month that it would resign from leadership after increasingly distancing himself from many at his conference on aid to Ukraine and other issues. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who put the bills on the floor after praying for guidance, faces threats of dismissal after a majority of Republicans voted against aid to Ukraine.
McConnell has made it clear that stopping Putin is important enough for him to stake his political capital.
“The national security of the United States depends on the willingness of its leaders to build, sustain and exercise hard power,” McConnell said after House approval on Saturday, adding: “I make no apology for taking these interconnected threats seriously or for urging a The Biden administration and my colleagues in Congress do the same.”
On Tuesday morning, McConnell said the Senate faces a test, “and we must not fail it.”
Johnson said after the House passed that “we did our job here and I think history will judge it well.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime GOP hawk who voted against it in February because it was not accompanied by legislation to curb migration at the border, praised Johnson after the vote and indicated he will vote for it this time. “The idea that America will be safer if we shut down our friends and allies abroad is wrong,” he said on X.
The House’s revised package also included several Republican priorities that were acceptable to Democrats for the bill to pass. These include proposals that would allow the US to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations trafficking fentanyl; and potentially ban TikTok in the US if owner ByteDance Ltd. doesn’t sell. This bill has broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate.
Opponents in the Senate, as in the House, will likely include some left-wing senators who oppose helping Israel, since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bombed Gaza and killed thousands of civilians. Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders, an independent, and Peter Welch, a Democrat, voted against the package in February.
“This bill provides Netanyahu with an additional $10 billion in unrestricted military aid for his horrific war against the Palestinian people,” Sanders said on X shortly before the vote. “This is unfair.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
