The House of Representatives on Saturday approved a series of bills to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, along with a package that includes forcing Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok.
After a morning of discussions on the House floor, the four bills will be compiled into one package and sent to the Senate for approval. It will then be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature into law.
“I understand it's not perfect legislation,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Los Angeles, said Saturday after the vote. “We would rather send bullets to the conflict abroad than send our boys and our troops. I think this is an important moment and an important opportunity to make this decision.”
Johnson's decision to hold the vote was fraught with political risks, as hardline members of his party threatened to oust him. In March, Republican Representative from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, introduced a motion to remove Johnson from office, but has not yet forced a vote on the measure.
“As I've said many times, I don't walk into this building concerned about a motion to evacuate,” Johnson said Saturday. “I have to do my job.”
After the long-stalled foreign aid ended, Johnson received a wave of public statements thanking him.
“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. “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so I can sign it into law.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., indicated Saturday that the Senate may vote on the package on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on the
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz also thanked Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Saturday for helping pass the aid.
The bills allocate more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, more than $26 billion to Israel, and more than $8 billion for the security of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. The fourth bill includes a measure to force Chinese company ByteDance to sell the social media platform TikTok within nine months — though the president can offer a 90-day extension — or face a national ban.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of critical foreign and humanitarian aid to once again obfuscate the ban bill,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
House approval is a crucial next step for foreign aid, which has been in limbo since President Biden first proposed it in October. After the long-awaited vote on Ukraine passed, a crowd of House Democrats waving Ukrainian flags erupted into a chorus of cheers.
In February, the Senate approved a $95 billion version of aid to fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. However, the House has effectively put this bill on hold due to political threats from hard-line House Republicans like Rep. Greene.
Despite the looming political backlash, Speaker Johnson has been persuaded to reconsider the foreign aid package after Iran attempted to strike Israel last weekend. This escalatory move sparked a renewed bipartisan push to push the House of Representatives to act in support of Israel.
In response, Johnson placed the foreign aid package at the top of the House of Representatives' agenda. He laid out a plan to regulate foreign aid in separate bills, which he presented to fellow Republicans on Monday evening.
After that meeting, Greene expressed her dissatisfaction with Johnson's proposed foreign aid bills, but stressed that she had not yet decided whether to force a vote to oust him.
“I think this is another wrong direction for President Johnson in our conference,” she said Monday.
Greene's eviction proposal loomed over Saturday's vote. As he entered the House floor, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Los Angeles, told NBC News he did not expect Greene to force a vote on the proposal on Saturday.
