Johnson reveals bold plan for Israel and Ukraine aid to overcome stalemate

The House will move forward with a proposal to vote on four separate funding bills in an effort to advance aid to Ukraine and Israel after months of deliberation among lawmakers.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) unveiled the plan to House Republicans on Monday, proposing to split foreign aid into four separate bills focusing on Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and then a fourth that includes other defense measures to “strengthen our national security.” The plan is to combine all four bills into a single rules package before bringing them to the floor for individual votes, according to the speaker.

It’s expected the bills will be brought to the floor through an open amendment process, allowing lawmakers to propose adding other measures before the legislation is finalized. After that, whichever bills advance through the House will be transferred to the Senate.

It’s not yet clear whether the bills will be sent to the Senate as a package or as individual pieces of legislation.

The proposal marks the first time Johnson has announced a plan to move forward with foreign aid since the Senate passed its own supplemental package earlier in February. That package sought to combine aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan — a proposal that Johnson deemed “dead on arrival” in the House.

Lawmakers in the lower chamber had explored alternative ways to advance foreign aid without success resulting in a monthslong impasse.

However, congressional leaders were pressured to move quickly on providing foreign aid after Iran launched a missile attack on Israel over the weekend, escalating tensions in the Middle East as Israel wages a war on the Hamas militant group that began after the Oct. 7 attack.

It’s not yet clear what the funding levels will be for the four spending bills, but Johnson told reporters on Monday they would be roughly the same as those in the Senate supplemental bill he had refused to advance.

The details of the fourth spending bill that includes national security measures has not been entirely hashed out, according to several lawmakers. However, it’s likely to include the TikTok ban that already passed the House earlier this year as well as the REPO Act, a proposal to seize frozen Russian assets and transfer them to the Ukrainian government to fight against the Kremlin.

Several Republicans expressed support for the plan, lauding the proposal to vote on each of the funding packages separately. However, not all members were on board — including Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has been vocally opposed to providing aid to Ukraine for months and has threatened Johnson’s job by filing a motion to vacate the speakership.

Greene emerged from a closed-door meeting with Johnson and other GOP lawmakers visibly upset with Johnson, calling his plan a “scam.”

It’s not yet clear how quickly the House will move forward with voting on the four bills as legislative text has not yet been finalized. Under House rules, leaders must provide lawmakers 72 hours to review bill text before bringing it to the floor for a vote, which could drag the process into the weekend.

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“We will honor the 72-hour rule,” Johnson said. “That probably means that if we get bill text sometime early [Tuesday] — that’s the hope, that’s the ambition — then that probably puts us into perhaps Friday evening. We’ll have to see how the clock works.”

The bills, if passed, would then be passed to the Senate, where their futures are not as certain. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) did not commit to considering the legislation should it make it to the upper chamber, telling reporters “we’ve got to take a look at it.”