Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, inside a M1 Abrams tank in Lithuania in August 2021. ( Joshua Thorne/Army)
WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Friday that the White House will need to collaborate with House Republicans to push a $105 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel through the divided and paralyzed lower chamber.
The Biden administration is requesting the funds as the House remains at a standstill without a speaker and Republicans show growing skepticism toward providing support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion and pairing that aid with funding for Israel as it embarks on a war with Hamas militants in Gaza.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said top Republicans, including the chairmen of the House committees on Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence, as well as others are “clearly” supportive of the White House’s supplemental aid request.
“The key thing is the administration needs to be working very, very closely with Republicans,” Smith said during an event at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “Make the pitch, get Republicans broadly supportive, get the Senate to pass a package, put it on our doorstep and then say, ‘All we’re asking for is a vote… There are over 300 votes for what we want to do here. Just put it on the floor.’ That has to be the strategy.”
A major roadblock for the package, which the White House formally requested Friday, is the speakership vacancy in the House and Republicans’ ongoing struggle to agree on a new leader after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., more than two weeks ago, Smith said. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, failed for a third time on Friday to win election as speaker.
Smith said McCarthy’s removal has opened the door for aid to Ukraine and Israel to pass the House, even amid the Republican infighting. McCarthy stripped $6 billion in Ukraine aid from a deal that avoided a government shutdown last month. The White House had requested $24 billion for Ukraine in August.
“Kevin McCarthy had no intention whatsoever of bringing that up,” Smith said. “He had told more than one person that he felt putting up a supplemental package would be a speakership-ending decision, which he wasn’t inclined to do. So we had to move past that, which we did.”
Senate Majority Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Senate is taking the lead on the White House’s latest request.
“This legislation is too important to wait for the House to settle their chaos,” he said. “Senate Democrats will move expeditiously on this request, and we hope that our Republican colleagues across the aisle will join us to pass this much-needed funding.”
The emergency funding request includes $61.4 billion for continued military and economic assistance for Ukraine, $10.6 billion for Israel’s air and missile defense and $9 billion for humanitarian aid for Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, the blockaded Palestinian enclave under Israeli bombardment.
The White House is also asking for $12 billion to better secure the U.S. border with Mexico and $7.4 billion for security assistance to Taiwan and other allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
“This request reflects how under President Biden’s leadership, the U.S. has rallied the world, building a coalition of more than 50 countries to respond to Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and we are now coming to the aid of our ally, Israel,” Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Friday in a call with reporters.
Young did not comment on whether the speaker battle in the House will cause problems for the supplemental request.
“That is a matter for the House to work out,” she said. “We’re doing our job here by letting Congress know what the critical needs are, and we expect them to act and act swiftly.”
Smith said there is a bipartisan path forward that House Republicans could take and it would require bringing the supplemental up for a vote, sticking to spending levels that were agreed upon in a debt ceiling deal in May and avoiding a government shutdown next month.
“You do those three things, we’ll throw you a few votes if you need them,” he said. “That’s still very much on the table for any Republican that wants to take us up on it.”
shkolnikova.svetlana@stripes.com
Twitter: @svetashko
