The Senate is expected to brush aside opposition to the House-led $95 billion foreign package and move to quickly pass the bill, Punchbowl News reported Monday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is angling to get the bill to the floor on Tuesday over the objections of two Republican senators and an independent who are looking to put their stamp on the aid package for Ukraine ($60.84 billion), Israel ($26 billion) and the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan ($8.12 billion).
"And remember that 80% of the Ukrainian funding will go to the replenishment of American weapons and stocks and our facilities and our operations,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Saturday.
The rest of the aid to Ukraine is in the form of loans that Ukraine can use to buy U.S. weaponry. The loans can be forgiven by the president.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wants to nix the forgivable part of the loans to Ukraine and plans to file an amendment that it is to be repaid and used to pay down the U.S. deficit, Punchbowl reported.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is vying to get the bill sent to the Appropriations Committee to add Israel-related provisions, according to the report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is saber-rattling over the aid to Israel’s “war machine” and wants to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, “so that children in Gaza don’t starve," he said in a post to X on Saturday. The House stipulated that no funding be given to UNRWA over the many links to Hamas terrorists from within the U.N. agency.
Punchbowl reported that all the amendments will be rejected and the package will easily pass the chamber’s 60-vote threshold and advance to the desk of President Joe Biden for his signature.
The Senate was scheduled to be in recess this week. However, the House on Saturday passed the aid package, which also includes a measure that includes a prospective ban of the Chinese-owned app TikTok and the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine, titled the REPO Act.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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