The likelihood that Congress approves new aid for Ukraine before year’s end is growing smaller with each passing day, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pointing fingers at their rivals.
“Zero chance,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital when asked whether Congress will work out a deal before the end of the year, “because the Democrats don’t want to close our southern border.”
Republican leaders in the House and Senate have insisted that any aid for Ukraine be paired with conservative policy concessions on border security and asylum laws. Democrats have called Republican demands for Trump-era immigration policies to deal with the ongoing migrant crisis unreasonable.
Now, with less than a week before both chambers of Congress are scheduled to leave for the holidays, Democrats and Republicans have each insisted the other side is to blame if a deal isn’t reached.
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“I’m deeply concerned that both Ukraine and Israel aid won’t pass. And I’m deeply concerned [what] message that sends to our allies, that the United States can’t live up to its commitments,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., told Fox News Digital. “I don’t think Democrats are the issue here. It’s the chaos with the Republicans.”
Moskowitz pointed to GOP leaders pulling a key program renewal off the expected vote schedule as evidence of dysfunction in their ranks.
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“They can’t agree amongst themselves,” he said. “Democrats are willing to make a deal, the president’s willing to make a deal. We’re not going to cave to ridiculous extreme measures. That won’t work. But no, we’re here to make a deal.”
Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., blamed President Biden’s White House “for not having a plan for Ukraine to begin with.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday that while he supports Ukraine’s goal of defeating Russia’s invasion, the House would not budge until they were satisfied with oversight of both the border and the dollars going to Kyiv.
“What the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight or clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed,” he said. “I have also been very clear from day one that our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first.”
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Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Senate is teeing up a vote on a $110 billion supplemental aid package, roughly $61 billion of which is aimed at Ukraine. It also includes money for Israel and humanitarian causes in Gaza and elsewhere.
The White House has warned that Ukraine could face catastrophic losses if aid is not replenished by the end of the year.
Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., accused Republicans of “playing games with the emergency supplemental,” doubting that Ukraine aid or any other part of it will pass Congress.
“I don’t know when the Republican leadership is going to get its act together,” Ivey told Fox News Digital.
On the other hand, Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Texas, said he would “love to find a way” to pass both Ukraine aid and border security measures this year.
“Whether that happens before Christmas or not, I’m not sure,” he added. “The administration still has a lot of work to do to sell their case to some of my colleagues. And Speaker Johnson has made it very clear what his terms of the deal are. So, if it’s that important, the administration, they’ll find a way to [do] it.”