Mike Johnson Blocks $24B In Military Aid To Ukraine: ‘Not The Place Of Biden To Make That Decision’

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 28: U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on June 28, 2024 in Washington, DC. Johnson said that members of President Joe Biden's cabinet should "search their hearts" and evoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office after his performance at Thursday's presidential debate against former President Donald Trump. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on June 28, 2024 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

OAN Staff Blake Wolf
3:55 PM – Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected passing an additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, explaining that he would instead wait for incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s decision on the matter.

The request came after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget requested additional Ukrainian aid from Congress, which reportedly included $8 billion in weapons purchases and an extra $16 billion to repair and replace U.S. military equipment that was damaged in the war.

“As we predicted and as I said to all of you, weeks before the election, if Donald Trump is elected it will change the dynamic of the Russia war on Ukraine, and we’re seeing that happen,” Johnson stated.

“So, it is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now, we have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction on all that so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” he continued.

The White House’s latest request aimed to provide additional aid to Ukraine through 2026 in preparation for the incoming Trump administration, which seeks to put an end to the war through diplomatic means.

“I want to get Russia to settle up with Ukraine and stop this – millions of people being killed, far greater than the number you read about. But I want to get that done before I even take office, I want to get that done as president-elect, because it has to be solved – too many people dying, too many cities are just in rubble right now, you look at the cultures just being destroyed. We’ve got to get that done, and I’ll get it done,” Trump stated.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims that “the hot stage of the war” could end if Ukraine was admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

However, Americans who have expressed concern regarding the United States running out of funds have argued that aiding the Russia-Ukraine war is futile for the U.S. as a whole, and some have accused President Zelenskyy of carelessly sacrificing his own men in order to join NATO and take control of Crimea, which Russia has already maintained will never be taken from them.

“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do, fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” Zelenskyy stated.

Trump campaigned on ending the Ukraine war, and he likely plans on doing so through negotiation as his special envoy to the conflict, Keith Kellog, has proposed withholding aid to Ukraine if its leaders do not engage in diplomatic negotiations rather than violence.

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Trump Taps Former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg To Serve As Special Envoy To Russia And Ukraine

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 22: Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, National Security Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, speaks during a press briefing at the White House on September 22, 2020 in Washington, DC. On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump said that he will reveal his pick to succeed the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, National Security Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, speaks during a press briefing at the White House on September 22, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:16 PM – Wednesday, November 27, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg will serve as his special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, a key position as the ongoing conflict continues to escalate.

“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

I am honored by @realDonaldTrump's appointment to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. It was the privilege of my life working for President Trump, and I look forward to working tirelessly to secure peace through strength while upholding… pic.twitter.com/Nj6TFFEyui

— Keith Kellogg (@generalkellogg) November 27, 2024

Kellogg, who previously served as Trump’s chief of staff and executive secretary to the National Security Council, released a policy paper regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, arguing that the United States should only provide military aid to Ukraine on the condition that they enter into official diplomatic peace talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in July 2023 that Ukraine would never consider a peaceful agreement in its conflict with Russia as long as Moscow controls Crimea.

“We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. And while Crimea is under the Russian occupation, it means only one thing: War is not over yet,” Zelenskyy, 45, said in a CNN interview.

Kellogg further explained how he sees the situation.

“Ukraine would not be asked to relinquish the goal of regaining all its territory, but it would agree to use diplomacy, not force, with the understanding that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough, which probably will not occur before Putin leaves office,” Kellogg wrote, along with co-author Fred Fleitz.

Kellogg’s proposal also notes that the United States would increase support for Ukraine if Moscow refuses to engage in peace talks. However, if Ukraine refuses, the nation would most likely have certain “privileges” revoked, especially in terms of Western weaponry, according to analysts.

Trump was asked whether he supports Kellogg’s policy position, responding: “I’m the only one who can get the war stopped. It should have never started in the first place.”

President-elect Trump has historically criticized the consistent flow of American military aid and funds sent to Ukraine during their fight, preferring for both sides to negotiate rather than continuing warfare.

“As of September 30, 2024, the U.S. Ukraine response funding totals nearly $183 billion, with $130.1 billion obligated and $86.7 billion disbursed,” according to the Ukraine Oversight Committee.

Meanwhile, the 47th president-elect had more words to say regarding the Ukraine-Russia war.

“Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion. I think he’s the greatest salesman on Earth. But we’re stuck in that war – unless I’m president. I’ll get it done. I’ll get it negotiated,” Trump declared.

Additionally, Trump’s trusted advisors, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and his pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have also been outspoken critics of American taxpayer money being funneled into Ukraine’s war efforts.

“I know what Donald Trump was thinking while he was having that meeting. He was thinking, I want to turn this guy over and hold him by his legs and shake all the money out of his pockets and hope it adds up to $208 billion … That’s what the Democrats gave him, and we need to bring that money home,” Kennedy stated, referencing the funding Kiev has received since the beginning of the war,” Kennedy stated.

“I think it’s important if we’re ever going to end the war in Ukraine, fundamentally, at some level, we’re going to have to engage in some sort of negotiation between Ukraine, and between Russia, between our NATIO allies in Europe,” Vance added. “There is frankly no good reason that aid from the U.S. should be needed. Europe is made up of many great nations with productive economies.”

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Biden-Harris Admin Announces Over $8B In Additional Aid For Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shakes hands with US President Joe Biden during an event with world leaders launching a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukrainian Recovery and Reconstruction on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
1:28 PM – Thursday, September 26, 2024

SEE: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/biden-harris-admin-announces-over-8b-in-additional-aid-for-ukraine/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

After President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that more than $8 billion in military aid would be provided to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The first delivery of the Joint Standoff Weapon, a precision-guided glide bomb with a maximum range of 81 miles, will be one of the many expensive explosives provided as part of the aid. With the medium-range missile, Ukraine can try to strike Russian forces at “safer ranges,” and it significantly improves its arsenal of weaponry.

“Biden will not announce that Washington would let Ukraine use U.S. missiles to hit targets deeper in Russia," a U.S. official said,” according to Reuters.

“We’re making clear that we stand with Ukraine now and in the future,” Biden told reporters ahead of a bilateral meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office. He said the U.S. would continue to help Ukraine strengthen its position on the battlefield, and that he had directed the Pentagon to allocate all remaining security funding by the end of his term in January.

Zelenskyy praised Biden for his decision to give Ukraine even more assistance, and he emphasized the need to secure Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.

At least $5.5 billion of the extra aid will be disbursed before the financing authority expires on Monday, the last day of the U.S. fiscal year. Under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an additional $2.4 billion is available, enabling the administration to purchase more weapons for Ukraine from companies.

According to Biden, this will boost Ukraine’s defense industrial base, support its maintenance and sustainment needs, and give it more air defense, unmanned aerial systems, as well as air-to-ground weapons.

The president also stated that his proposal also calls for the Defense Department to repair and supply Ukraine with more Patriot missiles and an extra Patriot air defense battery.

In order to boost training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, Biden directed the Pentagon to support U.S.-funded training of at least 18 pilots in the upcoming year.

“I am grateful to the United States for providing the items that are most critical to protecting our people,” Zelenskyy said on Twitter, noting the Patriot battery, the large number of drones, and other long-range missiles.

At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump expressed his own feelings regarding the continued U.S. funding of billions of dollars to Ukraine.

“We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelenskyy,” Trump reminded the crowd.

Time Magazine and the BBC outlet also had some discouraging words to say about Ukraine’s war efforts.

“U.S. officials also need to recognize that even if this aid continues, there is no realistic chance of a total Ukrainian victory next year, or the year after that. Even if the Ukrainians can build up their forces, Russia can deepen its defenses even more,” Time Magazine reported.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that: “the former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command has warned that Ukraine could face defeat by Russia in 2024.”

According to AllSides’ Political Bias Meter, the BBC lands “center-left,” while Time Magazine leans fully “left” politically.

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Mitch McConnell BETRAYS Donald Trump with Ukraine Spending Plot

While Donald Trump has survived two assassination attempts, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is focused on aid to Ukraine. Christopher Bedford, senior editor for politics and Washington correspondent for Blaze Media, says McConnell is concerned about Pentagon funding rather than attaching the SAVE Act to a continuing resolution that has been endorsed by Trump and is popular with voters. While McConnell is trying to appear “bipartisan,” Bedford explains the phenomenon of Teamsters union members gravitating toward Trump.

Tulsi Gabbard on Who She Thinks Should Be Trump VP Pick…And Why It Shouldn’t Be Marco Rubio

Megyn Kelly is joined by Tulsi Gabbard, author of "For Love of Country” to discuss who is in the running to be Trump’s VP, the reasons she thinks it shouldn’t be Marco Rubio, whether she might get picked, and more.

Biden's Disastrous Foreign Policy and False Spin on Putin and Ukraine, with Tulsi Gabbard

Jill Biden's Ego and Arrogance...She Wanted Her Own Entrance Music?! with Tulsi Gabbard

U.S. To Announce New $2.3B Lethal Aid Package To Ukraine

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin attends a meeting with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on July 2, 2024. (Photo by DREW ANGERER/AFP via Getty Images)

SEE: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/u-s-to-announce-new-2-3b-lethal-aid-package-to-ukraine/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

OAN’s Chloe Hauxwell
1:30 PM – Tuesday, July 2, 2024

The United States is gearing up for another lethal aid package for Ukraine.

According to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, the U.S. is expected to announce an additional $3.2 billion in munitions.

It is unclear how much of the package will be delegated under the presidential drawdown authority, which pulls weapons, ammunition and equipment from U.S. military stockpiles to fulfill Ukraine’s alleged “short-term” needs.

Austin also discussed the Biden administration’s plans to continue to work toward Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“Now, as we look ahead to the NATO summit next week, Rustem, we’ll take steps to build a bridge to NATO membership for Ukraine,” Austin said. “Just weeks ago, President Zelenskyy and President Biden signed a crucial 10-year bilateral security agreement. This reflects our strong and enduring support for Ukraine. So, I look forward to discussing more ways to meet Ukraine’s immediate security needs and to build a future force to ward off more Russian aggression.”

Since 2022, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than $50 billion worth of military aid.

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Ukraine-Israel-Taipei Aid Bill Also Encourages Muslim Migration to US

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/ukraine-israel-taipei-aid-bill-also-encourages-muslim-migration-to-us; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Almost all of the discussion about the recent $95 billion aid bill finally has been about the military aid to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan, and about the failure to allocate any of that aid to protecting our southern border from illegal immigrants who have been pouring across that border from Mexico into Texas. But there is another aspect of the bill that is being passed over in silence but should be cause for great alarm: the $3.5 billion that will be spent on encouraging immigration, including would-be immigrants from Muslim countries. Robert Spencer wrote about this here, and more on this part of the bill can be found here: “Ukraine-Israel Aid Bill Includes ‘$3.5 Billion to Supercharge Mass Migration from the Middle East,’” by Neil Munro, Breitbart, April 25, 2024:

President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief is opening new processing centers for Muslim migrants, amid pro-HAMAS riots in U.S. cities and just after Congress granted $3.5 billion more for migration within the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel.

“Not only did the ‘Foreign Aid’ package do nothing to secure our own border, it included $3.5 Billion to supercharge mass migration from the Middle East,” said a tweet from Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO).

“The Biden-Harris administration set the refugee admissions ceiling for fiscal year 2024 at 125,000 refugees,” said an April 23 release from the Department of Homeland Security’s visa-granting agency, adding:

With the opening of the Doha Field Office on May 7, 2024, and the Ankara Field Office on May 9, 2024, USCIS will have 11 international field offices. Other international field offices include Beijing; Guangzhou, China; Guatemala City; Havana; Mexico City; Nairobi, Kenya; New Delhi; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Tegucigalpa, Honduras….

The two new USCIS centers that have just been announced will be used to process Muslim immigrants are in Doha, Qatar, where not just Qataris, but other Muslim Arabs, including Syrian and Palestinian “refugees,” will be able to apply for admission to the U.S., and in Ankara, where Turks and Syrian “refugees,” and even some Palestinians now living in Turkey will be able to apply for entry into the U.S. Those two of the eleven UCIS field offices, in Doha and Ankara, will now be exclusively for Muslims. There are likely to be Muslim applicants as well coming through the USCIS office in New Delhi.

Look at what just two people — the Somali immigrant Ilhan Omar and the Palestinian daughter of immigrants Rashida Tlaib — have done to disrupt Democratic politics, pushing the party to be ever more hostile to Israel, and encouraging the pro-Hamas demonstrations who are brainwashing an entire generation of American students to not only denounce Israel and support the terror group Hamas, but also, on some campuses, to shout “Death to America.” The many Muslim migrants who have settled in just one key state, Michigan, have led Biden, who thinks he needs the Muslim vote in that state, to back away from his oft-repeated assurance that his support for Israel is “ironclad.” His administration has been moving heaven and earth, trying to prevent the IDF from entering Rafah and thus finishing off Hamas. Bidenites have also refused to veto a UN Security Council Resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire without requiring that Hamas release its hostages. There has even been talk, among the Bidenites, to sanction the IDF’s “Netzah Yehuda” battalion for supposed human rights violations in the West Bank, which does not seem to me like an “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security.

Migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, and raises their rents. It also curbs citizens’ workplace productivity, shrinks their political clout, and wrecks their democratic, equality-promoting civic culture. Migration also worsens inflation, widens regional wealth gaps, and extracts needed human resources from developing countries.

Migration of all kinds is increasingly viewed with disfavor by the American public, as the latest Siena College poll of voters in New York State shows. But it is only Muslim migrants who carry with them, undeclared in their mental baggage, their inculcated hatred of non-Muslims — “the most vile of created beings” — and especially their hatred of Jews, who are ”the strongest in enmity to the Muslims.”

That being the case, when the Bidenites choose to open two USCIS field offices in Doha and Ankara to process a much greater number of Muslim would-be immigrants, they are harming the safety and wellbeing of American non-Muslims, and especially of American Jews. Yet in the mainstream media there has been no discussion about the opening of these field offices that will encourage both overall migration and, specifically, Muslim migrants to apply for entry into the U.S.

What does the discussion of what this increase in Muslim migrants will mean for the cohesion of our society? What makes us believe that our country can avoid the phenomenon of the No-Go areas created by Muslim immigrants in Western Europe? What will those increasing numbers of Muslim migrants — who will now be coming through Doha and Ankara – mean for the physical security of Christians and Jews? Or for the economic well-being of Americans, given how much it will cost the federal and state governments to provide welfare benefits for a largely unschooled labor force of Muslims whose members do not speak English, but are determined to receive all the benefits the state provides, while being less eager to be gainfully employed? What will be the effect of an increase in Muslim migrants on the incidence of Muslim terrorism? There has been no public discussion of any of these matters. Is this the result of simple inattention or, more likely, a fear of being thought “Islamophobic”? Or have we now reached such a pass that we feel the pressure to accept increased Muslim immigration as contributing to that “diversity” in our country that we are all expected to believe is a positive good?

DeSantis Was Right on Ukraine

By Patrick Buchanan

SEE: https://www.ammoland.com/2024/04/desantis-was-right-on-ukraine/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Russia Ammo Flag iStock-1359004634
 iStock-1359004634

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests … becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

So Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis volunteered in response to a questionnaire that Fox News reporters posed to declared and potential Republican presidential candidates.

DeSantis defined what he saw as a truly imperiled U.S. “vital interest.”

“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted.”

Republican colleagues and potential rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination came down on DeSantis with both feet, with Sen. Lindsey Graham reintroducing the “domino theory” of Vietnam days:

Vladimir Putin is “not going to stop. He’ll go to Moldova, into the country of Georgia, and he’s looking at the Baltic States or NATO. So the likelihood of a big war between America and Russia comes from letting him get away with destroying the Ukraine, because he’ll keep going.”

But, on reflection, is not DeSantis right?

Russia and Ukraine have each lost more than 100,000 dead and wounded in this war. Whatever its strategic objective in starting the war, Russia is now battling to hold onto territorial gains in Crimea, the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, about a fifth of all Ukrainian national territory prior to 2014.

Both nations have testified, by the magnitude of their sacrifices, to their belief that what is at stake in the war is vital to them.

But what have we Americans sacrificed?

We have sent billions of dollars but squabbled over whether to send advanced artillery pieces, Abrams tanks and F-16s to the Ukrainians.

This hesitancy testifies to our true “vital interest” in this war. It is to stay out, and avoid being sucked in, as we have in previous wars, lest we get into a clash with Russia that could become World War III or a nuclear war.

By what we have done in Ukraine, and what we have refused to do, the U.S. and NATO testify to the stakes they truly see involved. And those interests are transparently not vital to the United States. How could they be?

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt first extended formal recognition to the USSR as Stalin was carrying out the genocidal Holodomor in which millions of Ukrainians perished from forced starvation.

If the genocide of the Ukrainian people did not constitute a U.S. vital interest, then when did whose flag, Russian or Ukrainian, flies over the Donbas or Crimea become a vital interest? It never was so considered during a 40-year Cold War.

What are we to make of Graham’s contention that Ukraine is the first bite of the apple for Putin, that Moldova, Georgia, and the Baltic republics, all three of which — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have NATO war guarantees, are next on Putin’s menu?

But Putin has already invaded and defeated Georgia in the war over South Ossetia in 2008 — and then withdrew. For the Baltic republics, a Russian attack on any of them would risk retaliation and war with NATO.

Why should we think that Putin’s Russia, horribly bloodied in Ukraine, would be looking for a clash with a 30-nation NATO alliance led by the United States so Moscow could occupy an Estonia of 1 million people that Russia willingly gave up over three decades ago?

But Graham’s scenario of a Moscow on the march after a victory in southeastern Ukraine does raise questions about whether our present foreign policy, including NATO war guarantees, is truly protecting U.S. vital interests.

As stated, the transparent U.S. vital interest in the Ukraine war is to stay out of it and avoid the risk of a military clash with Russia that could lead to a wider war, a world war and a nuclear war.

The bottom line for both the USSR and U.S. in the Cold War was to avoid a hot war. And, for over four decades, Deo gratias, we succeeded.

Yet, since the Cold War ended, the U.S. has made NATO allies out of six Warsaw Pact nations and three Baltic nations that are former republics of the USSR. And Graham is talking about the U.S. confronting Moscow on behalf of three more — Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.

Why?

When did these ex-Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics become nation-states whose independence and defense are U.S. “vital interests” worth guaranteeing at the risk of war with a nation with 6,000 nuclear weapons?

Recently, Turkey and Hungary gave their blessing to the admission of Finland to NATO. Finnish membership would obligate the U.S. to treat it as an attack upon our own country, a Russian incursion into Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia.

Why should a Russian-Finnish border war, which has occurred before in history, automatically become a casus belli for the United States, 5,000 miles away?

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.


Patrick J. Buchanan

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.

Pat Buchanan
Patrick J. Buchanan

House Passes Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan Aid

House Passes Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan Aid

U.S. House Votes On Foreign Aid Package For Ukraine, Israel, And Taiwan
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 20: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) reads from his notes while speaking with members of the media following passage of a series of foreign aide bills at the U.S. Capitol on April 20, 2024 in Washington, DC. The House is passed a $95 billion foreign aid package today for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
U.S. House Votes On Foreign Aid Packages For Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 20: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) reads from his notes while speaking with members of the media following passage of a series of foreign aide bills at the U.S. Capitol on April 20, 2024 in Washington, DC. The House passed a $95 billion foreign aid package today for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

OAN’s Abril Elfi
12:27 PM – Saturday, April 20, 2024

The House passed a series of bills to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan along with the potential ban of TikTok.

Following a morning of deliberations on the House floor Saturday, the four bills will be combined into one and forwarded to the Senate for their approval.

After which, the package will be forwarded to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Biden praised the bill, stating he would sign the legislation if passed by the Senate.

“I want to thank Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries, and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House who voted to put our national security first,” Biden said in a statement following the votes. “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled Saturday that the Senate is expected to vote on the package on Tuesday.

“I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties and personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X after the vote.

Additionally, on Saturday, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz expressed gratitude to Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for their assistance in approving the aid.

More than $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, more than $26 billion for Israel, and more than $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific security are all included in the bills.

A fourth bill calls for a national ban on China’s ByteDance if the company does not sell the social media site TikTok within nine months (the president may grant a ninety-day extension).

The $95 billion version of the aid package to finance Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine was approved by the Senate in February.

In response to Johnson’s aid plan, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a motion to remove Speaker Johnson from office in March, but he hasn’t yet forced a vote on the proposal.

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