The U.S. Senate is expected to ratify $95 billion in foreign aid after the House over the weekend passed major funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as a measure forcing Chinese-owned share of TikTok to be sold or the app will be banned in the U.S.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pulled off the feat, but now he faces the fallout from his own party that could cost him his speakership.
The spending plan allotted about $61 billion for Ukraine, about $8 billion meant to bolster Taiwan and the surrounding region mostly from Chinese aggression, as well as about $26.4 billion for Israel, which is at war with terrorist group Hamas and has exchanged fire with Iran.
With every vote, Republican opposition to the Ukraine funding has grown louder, with many pointing out the southern border crisis goes unaddressed even as Ukraine gets more funding.
“Speaker Johnson proved today that the only border he cares about is Ukraine’s,” U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., wrote on X, formerly Twitter, over the weekend.
Green has filed a motion to oust Johnson from the speakership.
“Those who voted to fund Ukraine’s borders instead of America’s KNEW for certainty that the separate (unattached to Ukraine) border security was going to die in the Senate, and are now dying for cover – so they’re casting blame,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote on X. “Own it.”
Johnson said he cannot do his job while worrying about a motion to vacate, and some Democrats have suggested they would vote to save Johnson in the speakership, according to media reports.
“I’ve done what I believe to be the right thing…” Johnson told reporters.
Green told Fox News over the weekend that if Johnson doesn’t resign he will be vacated, but it’s unclear if she will make good on that threat.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has joined Green’s effort to vacate, but he also has called on Johnson to resign so that the motion will not have to be filed.
“This is the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson,” Massie said on X alongside a video clip of Democrats waving Ukrainian flags on the House floor. “Democrats are celebrating his total capitulation with no victory for securing our border.”
Massie also said “Democrats run” Johnson.
Johnson received praise from President Joe Biden after the vote and is expected to sign off on the spending if it makes it to his desk.
“I want to thank Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries, and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House who voted to put our national security first,” Biden said in a statement over the weekend. “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”
