WASHINGTON — On Capitol Hill, the Senate is preparing to take up a foreign aid package that would provide nearly $100 billion in assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The deeply divided House approved the package Saturday in a rare show of bipartisanship, but not without sharp objections from some lawmakers from Texas on both sides of the aisle.
The House’s approval of $95 billion in assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan deepens the cracks in Speaker Mike Johnson’s fractured Republican majority.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, praised Johnson for advancing the package. He is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“I want to thank Speaker Johnson, who has been under enormous pressure. He has said he wants to be on the right side of history, and with this vote today, he absolutely is,” McCaul said on the House floor Saturday.
Other Texas Republicans expressed disappointment that Johnson relied on the votes of Democrats to pass the bill. Johnson’s decision triggered a fresh round of uncertainty over the future of his speakership.
“There’s continued frustration with the fact that we’re allowing the, frankly, allowing the House to be governed by Democrats,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin.
“When the American people gave us the gavel, they were begging for leadership, they were begging for it. We had the leadership, right, and look at how we’ve done. How have we done in the last six, seven, eight months?” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond.
House Republicans spent months demanding border policy changes in exchange for aid to Ukraine, only to reject such a compromise after it was offered by the Senate. More than a dozen Texas Republicans ended up voting no on Saturday on the help for Ukraine, arguing Congress should still prioritize U.S. domestic concerns.
“You tell the American people you’re going to secure the border, and then you get up and say, ‘Oh, I can’t.’ That’s just straight up false,” Roy said.
Several progressive Democrats, including four from Texas, voted against providing the military assistance to Israel over concerns about the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza from Israeli’s attacks on Hamas. Those lawmakers sought conditions on how Israel could use the aid.
“We have to decide what we’re going to do about it. Are we going to participate in that carnage or not? I choose not to,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said on the House floor.
Roy and Nehls also voted against the Israel aid.
The entire package now heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate and it could be passed as soon as Tuesday.