House to vote on critical aid for Ukraine and Israel and a potential TikTok ban

WASHINGTON — The House is poised to vote Saturday on a quartet of bills that would authorize new U.S. aid to Israel and Ukraine, alongside security assistance for the Indo-Pacific and a bill that would force TikTok’s parent company to sell it or be banned in the U.S.

The chamber is scheduled to vote in the afternoon on the four bills in succession, one day after a rare and extraordinary bipartisan coalition teed up the votes, with more Democrats (165) than Republicans (151) voting for the “rule” to proceed to the measures.

The bills are expected to pass and then go to the Senate for approval in the next few days. Taken together, they include the $95 billion aid package championed by President Joe Biden, with some changes from the version passed by the Senate two months ago.

Holding the vote represents an act of defiance by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., against an outspoken faction of conservative rebels who oppose Ukraine funding and pushed him not to bring it to a vote. Three of them — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. — have threatened to oust him as speaker. The passage of the bill may bring Greene one step closer to forcing a vote to remove him.

After months of wavering, Johnson sided with Biden, Democrats and the Republicans who believe that helping Ukraine fend off Russian aggression is essential to U.S. national security interests, citing briefings he has received and warning: “Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.”

“I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” Johnson told reporters, noting that his son will enter the Naval Academy this year. “This is a live-fire exercise for me as it is for so many American families. This is not a game, this is not a joke.”

Ahead of the vote, former President Donald Trump issued a confusing statement that sympathized with both the pro- and anti-Ukraine aid factions of the GOP without taking a clear position.

Apart from the three aid bills, the fourth measure includes a policy to force the China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months — which the president could extend to a year — or face a nationwide ban. The policy, which lengthens the time frame for a sale from an earlier House bill, has Senate buy-in along with Biden’s support, putting TikTok closer than ever to a ban in the U.S.

If they pass, the bills are expected to be packaged together and sent to the Senate, which will have to vote on the whole legislation to send it to Biden’s desk to sign into law. It’s unclear when that will happen, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are outspoken proponents of the foreign aid provisions in the package.

“I hope that President Biden will soon have on his desk long-awaited funding to support our friends in Ukraine and Israel and the Indo-Pacific, and aid for innocent civilians in need of humanitarian aid in Gaza and around the world,” Schumer said before the House vote, cautioning that Ukraine’s hopes against Russia would diminish without additional U.S. weapons to defend themselves.

Late Friday, Schumer said the Senate was working to get unanimous agreement to move quickly to vote on the foreign aid legislation. “We are working on an agreement for consideration of the supplemental,” he said on the Senate floor.

McConnell said earlier this week: “Here’s the political reality: If you think the fall of Afghanistan was bad, the fall of a European capital like Kyiv to Russian troops will be unimaginably worse, and if stalled American assistance makes that outcome possible, there’s no question where the blame will land, on us.”