U.S. House passes major aid package to Ukraine over Republican leadership concerns<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d better be there to help them, or in the history books, it\u2019s going to say, \u2018United States failed when it\u2019s most needed.\u2019\u201d \u2014 U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.<\/p>\n
LINCOLN \u2014 The U.S. House of Representatives, in a bipartisan way Thursday, passed the first major aid package to Ukraine under President Donald Trump since he returned to the White House.<\/p>\n
Despite House Republican leadership concerns, 18 Republicans joined with nearly all Democrats and the lone House independent to pass the \u201cUkraine Support Act.\u201d The House narrowly voted to let the measure come up for a full floor vote after it had stalled in committee.<\/p>\n
The measure passed 226-195 to provide $1.3 billion in direct military aid to Ukraine and $8 billion in military sales while slapping new sanctions on Russia. The act heads to the U.S. Senate where it faces an uncertain future. It needs 60 votes to head to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
\u2018Churchill\u2019 vs. \u2018Chamberlain\u2019<\/p>\n
Among the House Republicans supporting the proposal was U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has long described support for Ukraine as a choice between \u201cChurchill\u201d or \u201cChamberlain,\u201d referencing how two British prime ministers approached Adolf Hitler. Bacon has said not helping Ukraine now could lead to dire consequences, up to another world war or troops on the ground.<\/p>\n
Neville Chamberlain is often blamed for trying appeasement in the 1930s with Hitler, who invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland anyway, starting World War II. That\u2019s in contrast to the leadership of Winston Churchill who stood against Hilter during the war.<\/p>\n
Bacon, in a Thursday floor speech, described the vote as whether the House was \u201cgoing to stand with good, or are we going to stand with evil?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should have done this a year ago. We could have done this in a bipartisan way a year ago, but we have not,\u201d Bacon said. \u201cThis decision is needed now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amanda Hall, executive director of the Omaha-based Orel Alliance, which supports Ukrainian refugees and families, said her nonprofit is thankful the Ukraine Support Act moved forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican aid to Ukraine has stalled in spite of 70% of Americans being in favor of supporting Ukraine,\u201d Hall told the Examiner. \u201cThis is an issue of global security and we are thrilled that this legislation is moving forward at long last.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Inaction on Ukraine ends now\u2019<\/p>\n
The bill was led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., who mustered just enough signatures to force a floor vote on his measure.<\/p>\n
Meeks has said he would have preferred the measure go through the regular committee process, a complaint shared by multiple Republicans, including the committee chair, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., as well as Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb. However, Meeks and Bacon, among other supporters, said Congress needed to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cInaction on Ukraine ends now,\u201d Meeks said after Thursday\u2019s vote. \u201cToday\u2019s bipartisan vote to pass the Ukraine Support Act demonstrates that the House stands with the Ukrainian people and that we will hold the criminal Russian regime accountable for its illegal war.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Tie the president\u2019s hands\u2019<\/p>\n
Flood, the chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group of more than 80 House Republicans, told the Nebraska Examiner that \u201cPutin is a thug\u201d and that since joining the House in 2022, Flood had \u201cconsistently voted to support Ukraine against his unprovoked aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, presenting a united front in ongoing negotiations should be our priority,\u201d Flood said Friday. \u201cBypassing regular order to pass a short-sighted bill that undermines our negotiating position is not how we end this war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple Republicans, including House leaders, echoed similar sentiments, as did Mast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this bill would do is tie the president\u2019s hands,\u201d Mast said Thursday on the House floor. \u201cIt would prevent him from negotiating an end to the war. I think the reality is that in order to end this war, we have to bring Russia to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reps. Clay Higgins, R-La., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., broadly criticized the measure for sending more tax dollars overseas.<\/p>\n
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was the lone Democrat to oppose the measure. She cited broad economic sanctions that she said \u201cfail to achieve their stated goals while inflicting suffering on ordinary people\u201d and \u201cin most cases are counterproductive to ending war.\u201d She has expressed support for a separate measure to sanction Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foreign policy establishment continues to return to the same failed playbook and expects different results,\u201d Omar said in a Friday social media post.<\/p>\n
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and in recent days has continued to bomb Ukrainian cities, including the capital city of Kyiv, with ballistic and hypersonic missiles. A team of Nebraskans, led by former State Sen. Tom Brewer, has entered its second and final week of what is Brewer\u2019s ninth mission to the war-torn country since Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d better be there to help them, or in the history books, it\u2019s going to say, \u2018United States failed when it\u2019s most needed,\u2019\u201d Bacon said Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u2018Just and lasting peace\u2019<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials have thanked the House for its Thursday vote, including Andrii Sybiha, the minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, and Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine\u2019s ambassador to the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we look to the Senate \u2013 unity in support is vital for a just and lasting peace,\u201d Sybiha posted Thursday on X.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also penned an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in which Zelenskyy called for an end to the war and proposed a meeting. Putin has already rejected that call.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence. We will have those who support us,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote. \u201cBut you, too, will have to fight much harder for your own existence \u2014 not Russia\u2019s, but your own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bacon, a self-described \u201cReagan Republican,\u201d said his idol would be standing with him on the \u201cright side\u201d in voting for the measure. In a social media post Friday, Bacon said former President Ronald Reagan, if he were alive, would demand Putin \u201cget the hell out of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our Churchill moment or our Chamberlain moment,\u201d Bacon said on the House floor. \u201cBy God, I\u2019m going to choose Churchill, and this House better choose Churchill tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep Adrian Smith, a Republican who represents Nebraska\u2019s sprawling 3rd Congressional District, did not respond to a request for comment to explain his opposition to Meeks\u2019 measure.<\/p>\n
Unclear future in the Senate<\/p>\n
As the proposal heads to the U.S. Senate, it\u2019s unclear whether it will be scheduled for a vote.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also not clear where Nebraska\u2019s two Republican members \u2014 U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts \u2014 stand. Neither responded to a request for comment Friday, though both have called for increased sanctions in the past.<\/p>\n
Fischer, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Ricketts are among the more than 80 cosponsors of a separate bipartisan measure to add sanctions. Despite nearly all senators joining on, the act has still stalled.<\/p>\n
Ricketts has said the U.S. should continue to ramp up sanctions and \u201cmake it really painful.\u201d Last year, he said it was important to work with European allies to get them to stop importing Russian gas and ensure the U.S. was arming Ukraine to the best of its ability to resist aggression.<\/p>\n
Bacon, in a separate social media post Friday, challenged House leadership concerns, arguing they say they\u2019re \u201cpro-Ukraine\u201d but couldn\u2019t support the latest bill\u2019s \u201cflaws.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve waited 18 months and they\u2019ve done nothing,\u201d Bacon said of House leadership. \u201cI look forward to the speaker submitting a better bill. If he\u2019s serious. I was tired of the excuses \u2026 history is being written and it will be a dark chapter if we don\u2019t help Ukraine win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. House passes major aid package to Ukraine over Republican leadership concerns \u201cWe\u2019d better be there to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1544,1542,950,415,1540,79,1541,26,979,33,152,1543],"class_list":["post-2957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-appeasement","tag-don-bacon","tag-international-relations","tag-neville-chamberlain","tag-politics","tag-republican-party-united-states","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-winston-churchill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}