President Joe Biden is trying to pressure House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from the bully pulpit to bring the Senate‘s $95 billion foreign aid legislation to the House floor for a vote.
“House Republicans, you’ve got to decide: Are you going to stand up for freedom, or are you going to side with terror and tyranny?” Biden asked Tuesday from the White House. “Are you going to stand with Ukraine, or are you going to stand with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? Or will you stand with America or with [former President Donald] Trump?”
Biden, congressional Democrats, and some of their Republican counterparts are campaigning publicly for Johnson to call a vote for the Senate’s $95 billion bill providing money for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, which passed the upper chamber on Monday, 70-29, with help from 22 Republicans.
Earlier, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Politico, “We’ve heard all kinds of rumors about whether the House supports Ukraine or doesn’t” amid Russia‘s invasion.
“It seems to me that the easy way to solve that would be to vote,” McConnell said. “I hope the speaker will find a way to allow the House to work its will on the issue of Ukraine aid and the other parts of the bill as well.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and other Democrats reportedly are considering using a rare parliamentary procedure known as a discharge petition to force Johnson’s hand.
During remarks from the State Dining Room on Tuesday that were added to Biden’s schedule at the last minute, the president also criticized Trump for comments the former president made regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last weekend during a South Carolina rally.
“When Trump looks at NATO, he doesn’t see the alliance that protects America and the world,” Biden said. “He sees a protection racket … because for Trump, principles never matter. Everything is transactional.”
The White House previously circulated a memorandum contending that the House should side with “American national security and NATO,” not Putin and Iran.
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“Months ago, President Biden submitted a request for critical national security funding to Congress — every aspect of which has strong bipartisan support,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote. “But a subset of congressional Republicans delayed that urgently-needed action, choosing politics over national security.
“Will House Republicans side with President Biden and Senators on both sides of the aisle in supporting American national security?” Bates continued. “Or will House Republicans, in the name of politics, side with Vladimir Putin and the regime in Tehran? The House GOP cannot lose sight of this binary choice. It would be devastating to undercut American national security by voting against our interests and values.”
