Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Friday to reaffirm U.S. support for the war-torn country as efforts to pass additional aid stall in Congress.
Schumer and his Democratic colleagues touched down in Lviv, Ukraine, early Friday ahead of meetings at the U.S. Embassy, including one with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Cabinet. He was joined on the delegation by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) to mark the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
“We are here to show the Ukrainian people that America stands with them and will continue fighting to get the funding they so desperately need and deserve,” Schumer said in a statement. “We believe we are at an inflection point in history, and we must make it clear to our friends and allies around the globe that the US does not back away from our responsibilities and allies.”
The trip comes one day after a bipartisan delegation of House lawmakers touched down in Taiwan to meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen and voice support for the island amid growing concerns about a Chinese invasion.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who leads the House select committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party, led the delegation, which was joined by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA).
“The United States, Democrats and Republicans, stands with Taiwan, for your freedom and for ours,” Gallagher said on Thursday. “For as Taiwan goes, so goes the world.”
Schumer’s trip also comes just one week after the Senate passed a $95 billion defense supplemental spending bill, which includes military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The legislation, which passed 70-29, faces an uphill climb to make it through the House of Representatives.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) won’t commit to bringing the legislation up for consideration, and both would face a reckoning from their right flank if they considered doing so. Johnson has also slammed the Senate for uniting around a bill that lacked border provisions — despite his support for scrapping the bipartisan border security deal from the legislation.
Schumer said on Friday that he intended to “make clear to Speaker Johnson — and others in Congress who are obstructing military & economic support — exactly what is at stake here in Ukraine, for the rest of Europe, for the free world” when he returned from Ukraine.
“Congress must pass the Senate’s national security bill,” the New York Democrat said.
Senators who support Ukraine aid on both sides of the aisle have been discussing ways to force consideration of the bill in the lower chamber with House lawmakers as a result of the opposition.
Four GOP senators involved in the talks told the Washington Examiner that pro-Ukraine lawmakers in the House are considering a discharge petition, which can initiate a floor vote without leadership’s permission if 218 signatures are collected.
More than half of the House and a supermajority of the Senate support continued Ukraine aid, meaning there are enough signatures in the lower chamber for a discharge petition. Were House Democrats and House Republicans to deliver half of their respective 212- and 219-member conferences, lawmakers would have enough signatures to bypass Johnson.
The Democrats can almost certainly deliver more than half their House conference. It will be far more challenging for Republicans to do the same amid pressure from the right flank and former President Donald Trump not to act on anything that could benefit President Joe Biden in November.
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Trump specifically called for an end to foreign aid giveaways unless assistance would be paid back in the form of a loan.
Biden has maintained that he is confident the United States will get Ukraine its aid, telling reporters last weekend that “the idea now when they are running out of ammunition that we’re going to walk away, I find it absurd.”
