GOP had previously demanded Congress address US-Mexico border crossings before passing further foreign aid

House Republican leadership appears to be officially backing down from their demand for lawmakers to address border security before any further aid was passed to support Ukraine in its war against a Russian invasion.

The news was made on Thursday at the House Republican retreat, with Speaker Mike Johnson telling reporters that bills to further fund both Ukraine’s defence and Israel’s military effort against Hamas would be brought up separately in the coming weeks. There was no indication that Republicans would continue baulking at the idea of passing either of them without first striking some kind of deal on immigration reform or border security that could pass both chambers of Congress.

In December of last year, Mr Johnson had made that demand explicit, telling the White House in a letter: “[S]upplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws”.

  • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Ukraine also has bipartisan support. There’s no guarantees it’ll pass, but it passed in the Senate just fine.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Ukraine also has bipartisan support.

      Not so much, no. Trump and therefore the party are beholden to Putin and pretending to oppose funding for Ukraine for fiscal reasons while wanting to write a blank check to Netanyahu’s genocide.

      • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        The republican party universally sucks, but it isn’t a monolith on this topic. Many old school republicans hate Russia and love funding the military industrial complex.

        https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/senate-vote-foreign-aid-ukraine-israel-dg/index.html

        The vote passed 70-29 in the Senate.

        The margins are so slim in the house, you only need a handful to vote in favor for this to pass.

        If 22 of 48 republicans voted in favor of it in the Senate, you can get at least that many in the House, which is more than enough.

        Their only play to prevent this was to avoid bringing it to the floor, which is exactly what they’ve done for the last month.

        Even as a split bill, this should pass easily.

        • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That vote was held before Trump had full control over the RNC coffers…anyone who doesn’t vote the way Trump wants them to will either see a party-funded challenge from their right during their next primary or no funding during the general.

          • frezik@midwest.social
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            8 months ago

            Trump isn’t going to give them money, anyway. He took over the RNC to funnel every dollar to himself. These are the Republicans who are evil but not dumb, and they know what Trump is doing here.

          • kbotc@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I think they all see Trump using the RNC coffers to pay his legal bills so they’re going to try and get money the other way: Sucking up to companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars and claim they brought jobs to their districts. You know, how our broken ass system has worked from the 1970s-2016.