Senate Advances Foreign Aid Package After Border Deal Fails

Facts

• The US Senate voted 67-32 on Thursday in favor of a procedural motion to advance a stand-alone foreign aid supplemental bill just a day after the collapse of a bipartisan bill linking foreign aid to rigorous security measures at the southern border.¹
• The $95.3B package to fund Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan comes as the broader measure, which had been privately negotiated for four months, failed to advance in a 49-50 vote — far from the 60 votes needed.²
• Four Democrats, including Alex Padilla (Calif.), Bob Menendez (NJ), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Ed Marley (D-Mass.), as well as Independent Bernie Sanders (Vt.), joined a majority of GOP senators who voted against the broader bill. Meanwhile, lead negotiator Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted to advance it.³
• In addition to providing aid to US allies, the joint border security and foreign aid bill earmarked $20B to address the ongoing crisis at the southern border and would have capped daily migrant crossings at 5K, narrowed the definition of but expedited asylum claims, and offered immediate work permits to asylum seekers.⁴
• Meanwhile, Thursday's stripped-down bill — which is still pending final passage in the Senate before it can move to the House — includes $60B for Ukraine, $14.1B for Israel, $4.8B for Taiwan, and humanitarian assistance to Gaza. It's unclear when a final Senate vote will occur.⁵
• This comes as the House rejected a stand-alone Israel bill on Tuesday — which would have provided more than $17B in military aid for the country — by a vote of 250-180, with most Democrats and the conservative House Freedom Caucus Republicans opposing the bill that required two-thirds affirmative votes to pass.⁶

Sources: ¹REUTERS, ²Wall Street Journal, ³POLITICO, ⁴FOX News, ⁵CNN and ⁶New York Post.

Narratives

• Democratic narrative, as provided by CNN. Republicans have now made clear that all their talk about securing the border is just an attempt to weaponize the issue for election purposes. Americans must be fully aware that Donald Trump and his fellow MAGA Republicans, rather than Joe Biden, are to blame for the failure of the toughest and fairest immigration reform proposed in decades.
• Republican narrative, as provided by American Conservative. Let alone that the so-called border deal would allocate three times more money for Ukraine than for the southern border, provisions allegedly intended to bolster security in the border were completely unacceptable. This fake border reform would, in fact, make the situation worse as Biden's lenient policies would become law.

Predictions