House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reversed course after promising to keep Ukraine aid in the Pentagon funding bill.
On Saturday, McCarthy told reporters that he has decided, after all, to keep the $300 million of Ukraine aid in the bill after acknowledging that another spending measure is scheduled to come up next week. That will fund the State Department and Foreign Operations, including money for Kyiv.
His change of mind comes one day after he vowed to clear the money out of the bill due to opposition from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), leaving Republicans struggling to decide how to move forward with appropriate government funding,
McCarthy claimed that removing the funds would be too complicated due to the Republicans’ funding strategy, which involves presenting the Defense bill alongside other measures.
“That’s not solving it because one of the others has some Ukraine things,” McCarthy said at the Capitol. “So it became too difficult to do that, so we’re leaving it in.”
On Tuesday, the House will take a procedural vote to advance four appropriations bills.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) said that the House will vote on amendments to banish the Ukraine aid from both the Pentagon and State Department and Foreign Operations spending bills. However, there is a possibility those votes may not happen if lawmakers block the measures from being debated.
This will mark the latest effort by McCarthy to advance his party’s funding bills.
However, even if Republicans pass any of the four bills, it would not avert the scheduled shutdown set to begin on October 1.
Instead of removing Ukraine aid from the Defense bill and forming a separate vote, Republicans chose to have a floor vote to eliminate Ukraine-related funds from both the Defense and State bills, ensuring that the funding will remain in place with the support of Democrats.
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Nevertheless, Greene is still expected to oppose the bills due to Ukraine's spending aid still being in them.
“I think Marjorie still has a problem,” McCarthy told reporters. “I think she’ll vote no on the rule if it’s in there; that’s why I was trying to solve it where everybody could be there. But this one, it didn’t work out.”
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.)— a McCarthy supporter— declared his move a “counterproductive strategy,” explaining that there was no way to pass all the funding bills before a potential government shutdown.
“We’re in a situation right now … where the arsonists are out there, number one, whining that their house is on fire. Number two, they are going to want credit that they put the fire out. And then number three, they’re going to set up a GoFundMe site to get paid,” Graves said.
Earlier this week, House Republicans broke from the convention. They opposed the rule for the Pentagon appropriations bill twice, which blocked the legislation from moving forward to the debate and a vote on the final bill.
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