Chuck Schumer to push stripped-down Israel and Ukraine aid package after GOP blocks Senate border bill
Chuck Schumer will force a vote on Israel and Ukraine aid stripped of border security provisions after Republicans made clear they would block the broader border security and foreign aid bill.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Senate Democrats he plans to force a vote Wednesday on an Israel and Ukraine aid package stripped of border security provisions after Republicans made clear they would block a move to take up the entire bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill in the afternoon, a Senate Democratic aide told NBC News.
If it gets the 60-votes needed for adoption, the procedural motion Wednesday afternoon would tee up a vote later this week on the pared down supplemental aid package, which includes aid to the warring countries and Taiwan.
The vote on whether to take up a motion to proceed to the narrower aid package is likely happen shortly after the first procedural vote on the broader border and aid bill Wednesday afternoon, the Senate aide told NBC News. Schumer's plan to try to move the foreign aid bill without border provisions was previously reported by Punchbowl News.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who supported the $118 billion border security bill that a group of Republican senators negotiated with Democrats, expressed support for a vote on the supplemental aid bill without the border provisions during a leadership news conference Tuesday.
“There are other parts of this supplemental they’re extremely important as well — Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan," McConnell said. "We still, in my view, ought to tackle the rest of it because it’s important. Not that the border isn’t important, but we can’t get an outcome. So that’s where I think we ought to head, and it’s up to Senator Schumer to decide how to repackage this, if in fact we don’t go on to it.”
Rating: 5