Senate Vows To Work on Foreign Aid Bill Through the Weekend, Amid Claims That ‘Adversaries Are Rejoicing’

The Senate will work through the weekend on a foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Free China after Republicans voted to kill legislation that would have included border security and immigration reforms. Whatever product emerges from the Senate, though, is likely to be dead on arrival in the House. On Thursday, the Senate voted to proceed to debate and amendments with the foreign aid bill that includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, and a few billion dollars for Taiwan’s security. The vote was 67 in favor and 32 against on the motion to begin what will be a days-long process of changing the legislation. The legislation will require 60 votes to pass the Senate after the amendment process. One analyst says President Trump looms far too largely over the foreign aid debate in both houses of Congress. One of President Clinton’s top emissaries for Israeli and Palestinian peace, Aaron Miller, tells the Sun that countries will suffer because of Congress’s intransigence. “Sadly for Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel, their security and future are now tied to the vagaries and dysfunction of Congress — America’s broken branch of government,” Mr. Miller, who helped forge the Oslo Accords, says. “Allies are wringing their hands; adversaries are rejoicing, hoping that the presumptive Republican nominee completes the cycle and withdraws America from the world again.”Another foreign policy stalwart, the World Bank president, Bob Zoellick, tells the Sun that there is some hope for executive action on Ukraine aid, even if the Senate ultimately fails to act on the more than $100 billion foreign aid supplemental bill President Biden proposed last year. Mr. Zoellick says America and its European allies could seize Russian assets held in a Belgian securities depository called Euroclear and deliver them to Ukraine, though some countries are worried about such a provocation. “If they reflect on it, I think Euroclear — and the Belgian government — will conclude it is in their interest to join a multilateral effort and not invite a public test of U.S. or other foreign authority over their currencies, and transactions of their currencies, in this matter, especially in the context of acts of state taking collective countermeasures to compensate Russian victims,” Mr. Zoellick argues. Acrimony reigned supreme in the Senate after Republicans announced they would kill the foreign aid/border security compromise negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators less than 48 hours after the text was released. The lead Democrat in the negotiating room, Senator Murphy, was irate when Republicans said the bill was unacceptable, which further imperiled the foreign aid package he has long supported as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “This is unbelievable — I can’t believe this is happening,” Mr. Murphy said on the Senate floor, visibly frustrated. “Republicans all stood up and said they wanted a bipartisan bill to fix the border … we delivered a bipartisan bill to fix the border … and within 24 hours — before the ink was even dry — Republican senators decided they don’t want a bipartisan bill to fix the border.”“What they actually want is chaos because that’s what Donald Trump says he wants,” Mr. Murphy continued. “What the hell just happened?”Just hours after that deal officially fell apart on Tuesday, the House again failed to act — this time on nearly $18 billion worth of aid to Israel, including munitions and economic aid. Speaker Johnson faced pushback from his right flank because the bill was not paid for, and the speaker was forced to put it on the floor under the process of what is known as “suspension of the rules,” which requires that two-thirds of the House vote in favor for the legislation to pass. The Israel-only aid package failed, 250-180, because it required two-thirds support.On Tuesday, the group of conservative senators who helped stymie the border provision of the national security supplemental gathered to take a victory lap. Senator Johnson says that the “problem” was that GOP leadership was secretive and not transparent. “When McConnell entered into this negotiation … it was fatally flawed,” he said. “We weren’t trying to win in the court of public opinion.”Senator Vance calls the legislation “pure, unadulterated bulls–.” When asked if he thought it was time for Senator McConnell to step down as Republican Senate leader, Senator Cruz said, “I think it is.”

Senate Vows To Work on Foreign Aid Bill Through the Weekend, Amid Claims That ‘Adversaries Are Rejoicing’

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