CNN
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Late Thursday night, the House Rules Committee passed a package of foreign aid bills out of committee with support from Democrats. This shows that Republicans in the chamber will need to rely on Democrats to pass legislation.
Three Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, voted against the bill in committee, but all Democrats on the committee voted in favor. Three Republican hardliners on the committee had threatened to veto rules on the foreign aid bill.
The four bills head to the full House on Friday for their first floor test by rules vote. A vote on final passage is expected to take place on Saturday.
Appearing on Newsmax, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested the timing of a vote on the package would be “early Saturday.” He did not provide further details, but his office told CNN the exact timing is still under consideration.
According to the rules, if a bill passes the House, it will be combined into a single amendment before being sent to the Senate.
Earlier Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus took a public position urging House Republicans to oppose the procedural vote, arguing that “to secure our borders, we must repeal the rules.”
“The House Freedom Caucus votes against the rules in the ‘America’s Last’ foreign war supplement package that would eliminate border security and calls on all House Republicans to do the same,” the group said in a statement. said. Posted in X.
The three bills in the foreign aid package provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, the latter aimed at deterring Chinese aggression in the region. The fourth bill includes other House Republican priorities, including sanctions against Iran, the seizure of frozen Russian state assets and measures that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok.
The three aid bills are similar to the foreign aid bill that passed the Senate in February. House Bill 4 was not included in the Senate bill.
According to a report by CNN, the three House aid bills amount to about 950 billion yen, the same amount as what was included in the Senate bill, with the adjustment that $10 billion in economic aid to Ukraine is in the form of repayable loans. amounting to billions of dollars.
With Republicans narrowly controlling the House of Representatives and a growing number of hard-liners angry about border security provisions, Johnson will need a sizable number of Democrats to pass the bill past procedural hurdles. You’ll have to rely on your legislators.
The fight over the bill, and the possibility that right-wing Republicans may seek to oust him over the bill, is the most intense pressure Johnson has faced over his future in his short term in office. There is. Massey said Tuesday he would co-sponsor Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to resign, which, if passed, would oust Johnson from the speakership, and the speaker told reporters he would not resign. Ta.
CNN’s Haley Talbot, Katie Lobosco, Tami Luhby and Brian Fung contributed to this report.
