A foreign aid bill worth billions of dollars to Gaza, Taiwan, Israel, Ukraine, and the Senate was approved yesterday.
Border security funding is not included in the $95 billion bill, which has been a major source of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate for several weeks.
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The foreign aid package was approved by a final vote of 67 to 32.
Unexpectedly, 12 Republican senators—led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—collaborated with Democrats to ensure that the vote passed.
This is the complete list:
Surprisingly, Sen. James Lankford, a well-known Republican who had supported the bipartisan border bill that failed, voted against it.
The bill’s border security provisions will be discussed in the Senate. They will then cast a vote to determine whether to forward it to the House for review.
Fox News has further information:
In the midst of Republican chaos, a foreign aid funding bill worth tens of billions of dollars for Israel and Ukraine passed the first procedural hurdle in the Senate on Thursday. The bill did not include the border and immigration package that was previously included.
By a vote of 67 to 32, the $95 billion package was approved through cloture, a procedure that restricts bill debate and advances it to a final vote. A three-fifths majority is needed. Senators will now discuss adding amendments related to borders.
The Republican senators who voted against it included Rand Paul, Jim Risch, Josh Hawley, Pete Ricketts, Tommy Tuberville, Rick Scott, Mike Lee, Katie Britt, John Barrasso, and Lindsey Graham. James Lankford, a senator who worked on the border provisions that the Senate rejected on Wednesday, did not vote in favor of them as well.
The bill has received votes in favor from seventeen Republicans, including well-known senators Chuck Grassley, John Thune, and Mitch McConnell.
$60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion for Gaza’s humanitarian needs, and almost $5 billion for the Indo-Pacific region are all included in the package. In order to possibly advance the package toward complete passage, the Senate will hold a final vote after hearing arguments for and against any proposed border amendments.
The process could take several days, according to Senate aides who spoke with Fox News Digital. Republicans are still negotiating which amendments will be considered. The final say on which amendments are brought to the floor will rest with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York.
“Now that we are on the bill, we hope to reach an agreement with our Republican colleagues on amendments,” Schumer said after the vote. “For the information of senators. We are going to keep working on this bill until the job is done.”
Before the vote, Graham, who is a fervent advocate for continuing aid to Ukraine, told reporters, “I’m not going to vote for cloture until I know how this movie ends.”
“I want to know what the Democratic leadership will agree to,” he said. “Our border is a bigger national security threat to us in the short term than Ukraine. We have not even begun to do what we could do to secure the border.”
After Republicans blocked the $118 billion package, which also included numerous border and immigration provisions, on Wednesday, Democrats put the package up for a vote. Republicans had previously declared that until the overburdened southern border was secured, they would not approve funding for Ukraine.
When the border-foreign aid package was unveiled on Sunday night, conservative Republicans fiercely opposed it, arguing that it would continue catch-and-release policy and normalize historically high levels of illegal immigration. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had a backup plan in place when conservatives and some liberal Democrats blocked the bill. The plan was to hold a vote without the border package.
CNN also stated:
After Republicans blocked a larger bill earlier this week that included border security measures, the Senate voted on Thursday to advance a $95.3 billion foreign aid package that helps Israel and Ukraine. However, a debate over amendments is still holding up the legislation’s passage out of the chamber.
The significant foreign aid package is now one step closer to a final vote, which may still occur in the coming days. To swiftly pass legislation out of the chamber, all senators must agree on a timing plan, and resistance to foreign aid from influential senators is likely to slow down the process. It will be a difficult road for the Senate to finally pass the bill because Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has long opposed foreign aid, stated he will not agree to speed up this process.
“I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” Paul told CNN’s Manu Raju. “If that takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”
By a vote of 67 to 32, the bill was advanced on Thursday. “A good first step,” according to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, who also stated that “failure to pass this bill would only embolden autocrats like Putin… who want nothing more than America’s decline.”
If the bill is eventually passed by the Senate, it would next go to the House, where it’s unclear when or whether Speaker Mike Johnson would hold a vote on it. Many House Republicans are opposed to further aid to Ukraine.
