U.S. Senate sends bipartisan lethal aid appropriations bill to President Joe Biden

Leg­is­la­tion belat­ed­ly approved by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Sat­ur­day that would pro­vide tens of bil­lions of dol­lars in secu­ri­ty assis­tance to Ukraine, Tai­wan, and Israel is on its way to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s desk this evening after a bipar­ti­san major­i­ty of the Sen­ate vot­ed for its pas­sage, hand­ing the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion and U.S. allies on the oth­er sides of the Pacif­ic and Atlantic oceans a long-sought win.

The vote was 79–18.

“Tonight, a bipar­ti­san major­i­ty in the Sen­ate joined the House to answer history’s call at this crit­i­cal inflec­tion point,” said Pres­i­dent Biden in a state­ment released by the White House. “Con­gress has passed my leg­is­la­tion to strength­en our nation­al secu­ri­ty and send a mes­sage to the world about the pow­er of Amer­i­can lead­er­ship: we stand res­olute­ly for democ­ra­cy and free­dom, and against tyran­ny and oppression.”

“I will sign this bill into law and address the Amer­i­can peo­ple as soon as it reach­es my desk tomor­row so we can begin send­ing weapons and equip­ment to Ukraine this week. The need is urgent: for Ukraine, fac­ing unre­lent­ing bom­bard­ment from Rus­sia; for Israel, which just faced unprece­dent­ed attacks from Iran; for refugees and those impact­ed by con­flicts and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters around the world, includ­ing in Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti; and for our part­ners seek­ing secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in the Indo-Pacific.”

“I want to thank Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, and all of the bipar­ti­san law­mak­ers in the Sen­ate who vot­ed for this bill. This crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion will make our nation and world more secure as we sup­port our friends who are defend­ing them­selves against ter­ror­ists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin.”

“This pack­age makes clear that Con­gress under­stands that the con­flict in Ukraine is not dis­joint­ed from future aggres­sion by the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty,” said Wash­ing­ton’s senior Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray in floor remarks. Mur­ray chairs the Sen­ate’s pow­er­ful Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee and also serves as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tempore.

“From the begin­ning, I was clear — the chal­lenges we face around the world are inter­con­nect­ed, we have to deliv­er a com­pre­hen­sive pack­age — half steps won’t cut it. This pack­age ensures Amer­i­ca keeps it word to all its allies — and stands by all of its commitments.”

Human­i­tar­i­an aid was an essen­tial part of the pack­age, Mur­ray’s office emphasized. 

“And espe­cial­ly impor­tant to me: in pass­ing this pack­age, we do not lose sight of the human real­i­ty on the ground — the fact that in the mid­dle of every con­flict, are civilians—people dis­placed from their homes, peo­ple fac­ing obsta­cles get­ting basic med­ical ser­vices, and kids and fam­i­lies who des­per­ate­ly need food and water. I made cer­tain, at every step, that this bill deliv­ers bad­ly need­ed human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance — for Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and so many oth­er regions caught in con­flict,” Mur­ray added.

“This sup­ple­men­tal will sup­ply Ukraine with des­per­ate­ly need­ed equip­ment, and weapons, and train­ing, and logis­tics,” said Mur­ray’s seat­mate, Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell. 

“For two years, the Ukrain­ian peo­ple have shown courage and resilience, enabling them to resist Russ­ian aggres­sion,” Cantwell declared. “It would be dis­as­trous for our nation­al secu­ri­ty — and for democ­ra­cy and human rights — if we had not sup­port­ed them.”

“The sup­ple­men­tal also includes sup­port for our Mid­dle East ally, Israel, includ­ing […] $9 bil­lion of human­i­tar­i­an aid for Gaza, and for peo­ple caught in con­flicts around the world. These con­flicts have tak­en an immea­sur­able toll on the Pales­tin­ian and Ukrain­ian peo­ple,” Sen­a­tor Cantwell con­tin­ued. “This pack­age also includes over $8 bil­lion to sup­port Tai­wan and oth­er Indo-Pacif­ic allies in a crit­i­cal part of the world where we stand shoul­der to shoul­der with these democracies.”

“It is shame­ful that House Repub­li­cans slow-walked vital aid to America’s allies and part­ners and human­i­tar­i­an relief for wors­en­ing con­flicts, but I’m glad it final­ly will be going to the president’s desk,” said Ore­gon’s senior Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden. 

“This mea­sure shows Amer­i­ca is still a world leader, and I believe this aid will has­ten the end of the wars in Israel and Ukraine,” Wyden added. 

“I’m glad that this pack­age also includes the bipar­ti­san FEND OFF Fen­tanyl Act, which will help our coun­try fight the scourge of fen­tanyl by dis­rupt­ing illic­it opi­oid sup­ply chains and sanc­tion­ing transna­tion­al crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions. Ore­go­ni­ans know that the addic­tion cri­sis in our coun­try has reached unprece­dent­ed lev­els, and it’s high time that Con­gress crack down on illic­it traffickers.”

Wyden was crit­i­cal of the por­tion of the bill aimed at ByteDance-owned TikTok. 

“I have seri­ous con­cerns about any app that gives unfriend­ly for­eign gov­ern­ments access to Amer­i­cans’ pri­vate data, and I believe there is a legit­i­mate secu­ri­ty risk caused by TikTok’s rela­tion­ship to its Chi­na-based cor­po­rate par­ent,” Wyden said. 

“How­ev­er, I remain con­cerned that this bill could have neg­a­tive effects on free speech around the world, does too lit­tle to pro­tect Amer­i­cans’ pri­va­cy from being sold to Chi­na through third par­ties, and pro­vides broad author­i­ty that could be abused by a future admin­is­tra­tion to vio­late Amer­i­cans’ First Amend­ment rights. I plan to watch­dog how this leg­is­la­tion is imple­ment­ed, and will blow the whis­tle if the exec­u­tive branch over­steps beyond the pur­pose of the bill.”

Cantwell has also been very skep­ti­cal of the House­’s leg­is­la­tion tar­get­ing Tik­Tok, and has been pre­vent­ing the swift advance of a stand­alone bill on the same sub­ject through the U.S. Sen­ate. But now it will reach Biden’s desk — with Cantwell and Wyden’s yea votes — thanks to its inclu­sion in a must-pass secu­ri­ty assis­tance bill.

Wyden’s seat­mate Jeff Merkley said he could not vote for the bill due to the appro­pri­a­tions that crit­ics say will enable Ben­jamin Netanyahu’s gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue oblit­er­at­ing Gaza and oppress­ing the Pales­tin­ian people. 

“This bill has mul­ti­ple impor­tant ele­ments I strong­ly sup­port, includ­ing pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal aid to Ukraine in the face of Vladimir Putin’s unpro­voked inva­sion,” said Merkley in a lengthy state­ment explain­ing his posi­tion and reasoning. 

“Ukraine is a demo­c­ra­t­ic repub­lic defend­ing itself against an invad­ing author­i­tar­i­an dic­ta­tor­ship. We must con­tin­ue to part­ner with Europe and oth­er allies to stand with the Ukrain­ian peo­ple and sus­tain the sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion and weapons Ukraine needs in defense of its democ­ra­cy. Had the Sen­ate had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er sup­port for Ukraine as a sep­a­rate bill, as the House did, I would have vot­ed in favor.” 

“I also sup­port oth­er ele­ments of the bill, includ­ing the FEND Off Fen­tanyl Act to help tack­le the flow of fen­tanyl into our com­mu­ni­ties, inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an aid, and assis­tance to strength­en secu­ri­ty in the Indo-Pacific.

“I sup­port­ed Israel going after Hamas fol­low­ing the hor­rif­ic attack on Octo­ber 7th and pas­sion­ate­ly sup­port every effort Amer­i­ca and oth­er nations are mak­ing to free all hostages. In addi­tion, I sup­port the aid to Israel for defen­sive weapons includ­ing Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Iron Beam.” 

“The sec­tion of this bill I can­not sup­port, how­ev­er, is the fund­ing and deliv­ery of more offen­sive mil­i­tary weapon­ry to Israel at a time when Israel is using Amer­i­can weapons in what Pres­i­dent Biden has called an ‘indis­crim­i­nate’ cam­paign of bomb­ing. That cam­paign has killed more than 34,000 Pales­tini­ans, includ­ing more than 24,000 women and chil­dren. It has also pushed Gaza to the brink of famine with 1.1 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans fac­ing cat­a­stroph­ic lev­els of food inse­cu­ri­ty. Hamas is Israel’s ene­my. Pales­tin­ian civil­ians are not the enemy.” 

“Pres­i­dent Biden has repeat­ed­ly and urgent­ly called on Prime Min­is­ter Netanyahu to adopt a much more tar­get­ed cam­paign against Hamas and to dra­mat­i­cal­ly expand the sup­ply of food, water, med­i­cine, and shel­ter need­ed to address the cas­cad­ing human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter gen­er­at­ed by Israel’s cam­paign. Indeed, Amer­i­can law requires recip­i­ents of Amer­i­can assis­tance to facil­i­tate the deliv­ery of human­i­tar­i­an aid. Netanyahu, how­ev­er, has made only minor adjust­ments in response.” 

“In addi­tion, Pres­i­dent Biden has asked Israel not to unleash a ground inva­sion of the city of Rafah in south­ern Gaza, which has swollen from a pre-war pop­u­la­tion of 275,000 to more than one mil­lion peo­ple as it accom­mo­dates an enor­mous flow of refugees from areas bombed to the north. But the Israeli mil­i­tary con­tin­ues to con­duct airstrikes and raids on Rafah, and Netanyahu con­tin­ues to pub­licly insist that Israel will launch a mil­i­tary offen­sive on the city, which will mag­ni­fy civil­ian casu­al­ties among a pop­u­la­tion that has nowhere left to go.” 

“The cam­paign con­duct­ed by the Netanyahu gov­ern­ment is at odds with our Amer­i­can val­ues and Amer­i­can law. Thus, I will vote against the sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing bill.”

In so many ways, Sen­a­tor Merkley has proven him­self to the con­science of the Sen­ate, assum­ing a role that in the past belonged to greats like Paul Well­stone of Min­neso­ta. We appre­ci­ate that Sen­a­tor Merkley took the time to explain his think­ing and detail his prin­ci­pled stance. That’s what real lead­er­ship looks like. Merkley knew he could vote against the pack­age with­out derail­ing it, giv­en that it appeared to be on track to pass with a huge majority. 

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Yea on the Motion to Con­cur in the House Amend­ment to the Sen­ate Amend­ment to H.R. 815: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell (WA), Ron Wyden (OR), Jon Tester (MT), Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Mike Crapo and Jim Risch (ID), Steve Daines (MT), Lisa Murkows­ki and Dan Sul­li­van (AK)

Vot­ing Nay on the Motion: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Jeff Merkley (OR)

Merkley and Sen­a­tor Peter Welch of Ver­mont were the only Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors to oppose the bill. Inde­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders of Ver­mont joined them in opposition.

The fol­low­ing Repub­li­cans vot­ed nay as well, but for dif­fer­ent reasons:

• John Bar­ras­so (R‑WY)
• Mar­sha Black­burn (R‑TN)
• Mike Braun (R‑IN)
• Ted Budd (R‑NC)
• Ted Cruz (R‑TX)
• Bill Hager­ty (R‑TN)
• Josh Haw­ley (R‑MO)
• Ron John­son (R‑WI)
• Mike Lee (R‑UT)
• Cyn­thia Lum­mis (R‑WY)
• Roger Mar­shall (R‑KS)
• Mar­co Rubio (R‑FL)
• Eric Schmitt (R‑MO)
• Rick Scott (R‑FL)
• J.D. Vance (R‑OH)

Repub­li­cans Rand Paul, Tom­my Tuberville, and Tim Scott missed the vote. 

Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky and Ukrain­ian lead­ers react­ed pos­i­tive­ly to the pas­sage of the package.

“I am grate­ful to the Unit­ed States Sen­ate for approv­ing vital aid to Ukraine today,” said Zelen­sky. “I thank Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer and Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell for their strong lead­er­ship in advanc­ing this bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion, as well as all US Sen­a­tors on both sides of the aisle who vot­ed in favor of it. This vote rein­forces America’s role as a bea­con of democ­ra­cy and the leader of the free world.” 

“I am also grate­ful to all Amer­i­cans who con­tin­ue to sup­port Ukraine and rec­og­nize that the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of this bill extends beyond pol­i­tics. I equal­ly appre­ci­ate Pres­i­dent Biden’s sup­port and look for­ward to the bill being signed soon and the next mil­i­tary aid pack­age match­ing the res­olute­ness that I always see in our nego­ti­a­tions. Ukraine’s long-range capa­bil­i­ties, artillery, and air defense are crit­i­cal tools for restor­ing just peace sooner.”

Pri­vate­ly, Zelen­sky and his com­man­ders have been con­cerned for some time that the aid won’t reach Ukraine in time to pre­vent Vladimir Putin’s regime from seri­ous­ly weak­en­ing their bat­tle­field posi­tion. The House spent months dither­ing before new Speak­er Mike John­son final­ly put Ukraine aid up for a vote. That was­n’t helpful. 

As Politi­co Europe’s opin­ion edi­tor Jamie Dettmer not­ed: “[T]he press­ing ques­tion is just how fast materiel, arms and ammu­ni­tion — espe­cial­ly artillery shells and air defense sys­tems — will actu­al­ly arrive. Will it all come in the nick of time, ahead of an expect­ed Russ­ian offen­sive this June or July, which Ukrain­ian com­man­ders fear could punch holes in Ukraine’s front lines? And if so, what hap­pens after?” 

“The truth is, it remains unclear whether it will take days, weeks or months for the kit to arrive at the front lines. And it all part­ly depends on how much has been pre-posi­tioned in Europe in antic­i­pa­tion of the U.S. Con­gress approv­ing the pack­age, as the Pen­ta­gon had been mak­ing reas­sur­ing nois­es that it was stock­pil­ing kit ahead of the vote.”

Ukraine did need Con­gress’ help soon­er, but it’ll take what it can get, con­sid­er­ing that the likes of Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene are in the cau­cus that nar­row­ly con­trols the Unit­ed States House of Representatives.