U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to decide this week on how he will handle President Joe Biden's long-delayed request for billions of dollars in security assistance for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific.
More than two months after it passed the Senate, the push for the $95 billion aid package, which includes $14 billion for Israel as well as $60 billion for Ukraine, gained new urgency after Iran's weekend missile and drone attack on Israel despite fierce opposition in the deeply divided Congress.
Johnson has so far declined to allow the Republican-controlled House to vote on the measure that the Senate passed with 70% bipartisan support in February.
Backers insist it would receive similar support in the House, but Johnson has given a variety of reasons to delay, among them the need to focus taxpayer dollars on domestic issues and reluctance to take up a Senate measure without more information.
Johnson also faces a threat from a hard-right Republicans to oust him as speaker if he allows the Ukraine aid to move ahead. Many on the right, especially those closely allied with former President Donald Trump, who has been skeptical of assisting Kyiv in its fight against Russia, fiercely oppose sending billions more dollars to Ukraine.
The House Freedom Caucus - a group of Republican hardliners with about three dozen members - released a statement on Monday calling for aid to Israel, but not to Ukraine, and rejecting as "bogus" any suggestion that the attack on Israel should help ease the path toward more funds for Kyiv.
The House has not approved any of Biden's requests for emergency aid for Ukraine since before Republicans took control of the chamber in January 2023.
The issue is closely watched by industries, such as U.S. defense contractors who could be in line for huge contracts to supply equipment for Ukraine and other U.S. partners. Aid supporters stress that approving the Ukraine bill would create many American jobs.
ISRAEL-ALONE BILL?
Johnson said on Sunday he would try to pass assistance to Israel this week after the weekend attack by Iran, but did not say whether the legislation would also include assistance for Ukraine and other allies.
Republican House aides said on Monday Johnson had not yet indicated his plans for security assistance, after discussing it with national security committee leaders late on Sunday and planning more talks with members on Monday.
The White House has been pushing Johnson to allow a vote, as have Senate Republicans and Democrats. "If House Republicans put the Senate supplemental (spending bill) on the floor, I believe it would pass today, reach the president's desk tonight and Israel would get the aid it needs by tomorrow," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in the Senate on Monday.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told his fellow lawmakers, "It’s also time for Congress to deliver the urgent investments that our industrial base, our forces, and our partners will need to meet and out-compete the growing and linked threats we face."
The top House Democrat, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, sent a letter to his caucus on Monday spelling out the need to support Ukraine as well as Israel.
"The gravely serious events of this past weekend in the Middle East and Eastern Europe underscore the need for Congress to act immediately. We must take up the bipartisan and comprehensive national security bill passed by the Senate forthwith," Jeffries wrote.
But reflecting the deep party divide in Washington, a letter released on Monday urging an immediate vote on the Senate bill was signed by 90 House Democrats and just one Republican.
And a discharge petition - a rarely successful mechanism to force a House vote opposed by the speaker - has garnered only 195 signatures, short of the 218 needed for a vote and including only one Republican, Ken Buck, who retired last month from Congress.
