Senate Passes USD$95B National Security Supplemental

The Senate has passed a USD$95 billion package of foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and allies in the Indo-Pacific after a marathon overnight voting session. The package now faces a more challenging pathway through the House of Representatives.

• House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement yesterday: “The mandate of national security supplemental legislation was to secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world… Now, in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters.”
• Note: A bipartisan Senate border security bill which was initially included in the nat-sec package was torpedoed last week by House Republicans, taking cues from former President Donald Trump.
• Johnson's statement suggests he may take another run at attaching the hardline House Republican border bill HR2 to the package - a bill which is DOA in the Senate and threatens to return Congress to gridlock over the border.
• If Johnson pursues his hardline border strategy, he may invite more accusations from Democrats that he, and Trump, are intentionally blocking action on the border to keep the political wedge issue live ahead of the general election.
• Johnson's other options include splitting the bill into a series of standalone votes or restructuring the Ukraine bill into either loans or exclusively military aid.
• If Johnson doesn't alight on a strategy soon, the long-shot option of GOP defence hawks signing a discharge petition becomes slightly more likely.