CV NEWS FEED // The Senate is gearing up to vote on a nearly-$100-billion foreign aid package which, unlike a previously proposed bill, does not include provisions to secure the southern border of the U.S.
CBS News reported Friday afternoon that the “$95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific could be on its way to the House early next week after months of setbacks in the Senate.”
“The Senate is set to vote Friday night to begin debate on the foreign aid supplemental and is expected to work through the weekend after some Republicans demanded that the legislation include border security provisions, while others objected to it outright,” CBS continued.
Per CBS, only a simple majority of the Democratic-controlled Senate is required for the package to pass its “procedural vote.” CBS explained that the initial vote “would set up several days of debate and additional votes that would bleed into the start of the Senate’s two-week recess, which is supposed to begin Monday.”
Earlier this week, a chorus of Senate Republicans expressed their staunch opposition to a bipartisan piece of legislation marketed as a “border bill.” The $118 billion package included $20 billion earmarked for border security, compared to $60 billion for Ukraine aid.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, called that bill “dead on arrival” in the House, adding that it “won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe [President Joe Biden] has created.”
The negative blowback led Republicans to block the bill on the recommendation of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, who had initially backed it.
Just the day before, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said that he “ha[d] never worked more closely with Leader McConnell on any piece of legislation as we did on” the “border bill.”
>> McCONNELL RECCOMENDS ‘NO’ VOTE ON BORDER BILL AFTER CONSERVATIVES BLAST IT <<
CBS indicated that shortly following the failure of the package that included border provisions, its “foreign aid portion was then separated from the larger bill” to create the legislation currently being debated by the Senate.
However, observers from across the political spectrum have slammed the new foreign aid-only legislation, as the border crisis continues to rage on.
Republican former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pointed out on X: “The first ‘border bill’ allocated 3x more money to protect Ukraine’s border than our own.”
“Now that failed, so they’re trying to push the same funding bill for Ukraine to while allocating ZERO to protect our border,” he added, arguing that the difference “reveals what the whole game was about the 1st time anyway.”
X owner Elon Musk replied to Ramaswamy: “It is insane to keep sending so much money to Ukraine with no accountability and no end game.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, implied the bill was out of touch with the concerns of his constituents.
“This bill sends the message to Americans that their elected officials don’t care about them,” Paul wrote on X. “I’ve never met any Kentuckian who says, ‘fix the border of Ukraine before you fix our own.’”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, agreed.
“We must shut the southern border down today,” he wrote. “I will not support a bill unless it secures the border.”
