GOP had previously demanded Congress address US-Mexico border crossings before passing further foreign aid

House Republican leadership appears to be officially backing down from their demand for lawmakers to address border security before any further aid was passed to support Ukraine in its war against a Russian invasion.

The news was made on Thursday at the House Republican retreat, with Speaker Mike Johnson telling reporters that bills to further fund both Ukraine’s defence and Israel’s military effort against Hamas would be brought up separately in the coming weeks. There was no indication that Republicans would continue baulking at the idea of passing either of them without first striking some kind of deal on immigration reform or border security that could pass both chambers of Congress.

In December of last year, Mr Johnson had made that demand explicit, telling the White House in a letter: “[S]upplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws”.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    I think it’s because of the democrats starting the work-around to force a vote on the Senate border solution. They knew it would work, so now they are doing this to:

    A) stall for more time for Putin

    B) not address the border to keep it political.

    Dems should forge ahead on the work-around to fix all three at once.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I wonder if this is why Ken Buck is leaving so soon, and why he thinks others will leave as well. That Discharge Petition needs a majority of the House to sign on, which means to work it needs a handful of Republicans. I bet Buck’s name is on it, and he and the other four or five names on it recognize that once it is public, their career as legislators in the MAGA party is effectively over.

  • holycrap@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    It’s a trap. They’re trying to kill the current bill by directing attention to this one.

    On the other hand I’d love a ukraine bill that excludes isreal so…

  • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Excellent - Democrats should get the aid for Ukraine secured then continue pushing the border issue loudly so that it becomes obvious for those in the back of the room that Republicans are just using it as fodder for the election.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      We gave Republicans what they wanted on the border and they still didn’t take it. Now what Republicans wanted is Democrats’ position.

  • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    House Republican leadership appears to be officially backing down

    lol have they actually accomplished anything they tried to other than firing one another from leadership positions?

    • baru@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They successfully delayed things without saying their intention was to delay things like Ukraine aid.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        They let Russia take back that city, and probably more and decided that was as much flak as they could handle without their blatantly obvious support of Russia becoming whatever is after blatant.

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          It’s a tiny bombed out town with no one there. It’s not really worth anything. In the process, Russia lost about ten irreplaceable planes and a ton of troops, tanks, APCs, artillery, etc. I don’t mean artillery shells. Ukraine was destroying a ton of artillery emplacements.

          Attacking is much harder than defending. Russia is actually not very good at attacking, as we saw in the first month of the war. If Ukraine traded every tiny town for 10 planes and all the equipment and troops needed to capture it, Russia would collapse.

          Don’t worry too much about it.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Wouldn’t it have been better to keep it then and keep destroying a disproportionate amount of Russian hardware in the process? All while keeping another city where this’ll happen next from being tuned into rubble?

            That sounds pretty strategic to me?

            • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              Obviously it’s better to hold territory than to lose it. My point is, territory can be recovered. It never goes away. Russia can’t easily replace those planes or tanks. They don’t have good access to replacement parts for repairs and can’t build new ones without supplies from the US and Europe.

              Plus the pilots and tank operators are not easily replaceable either. Russia is slowly burning through all their equipment and experienced troops. That’s a recipe for losing.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        That’s the Lackey Paradox, or Klebb’s Law*.

        Anyone spineless enough to bow to pressure from you will also bend when faced by any stronger person.

        Klebb’s Law is named after Soviet spy Rosa Klebb, one of the most successful agent runners in history. RIP

        https://youtu.be/Zai6SJp6KDc

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The news was made on Thursday at the House Republican retreat, with Speaker Mike Johnson telling reporters that bills to further fund both Ukraine’s defence and Israel’s military effort against Hamas would be brought up separately in the coming weeks.

    Oh wow. Another split bill. I’ve seen this movie before. We won’t be funding Ukraine’s defense because Republicans oppose it. We will be funding Israel because genocide has broad bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.

    • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Ukraine also has bipartisan support. There’s no guarantees it’ll pass, but it passed in the Senate just fine.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Ukraine also has bipartisan support.

        Not so much, no. Trump and therefore the party are beholden to Putin and pretending to oppose funding for Ukraine for fiscal reasons while wanting to write a blank check to Netanyahu’s genocide.

        • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          The republican party universally sucks, but it isn’t a monolith on this topic. Many old school republicans hate Russia and love funding the military industrial complex.

          https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/senate-vote-foreign-aid-ukraine-israel-dg/index.html

          The vote passed 70-29 in the Senate.

          The margins are so slim in the house, you only need a handful to vote in favor for this to pass.

          If 22 of 48 republicans voted in favor of it in the Senate, you can get at least that many in the House, which is more than enough.

          Their only play to prevent this was to avoid bringing it to the floor, which is exactly what they’ve done for the last month.

          Even as a split bill, this should pass easily.

          • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            That vote was held before Trump had full control over the RNC coffers…anyone who doesn’t vote the way Trump wants them to will either see a party-funded challenge from their right during their next primary or no funding during the general.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              Trump isn’t going to give them money, anyway. He took over the RNC to funnel every dollar to himself. These are the Republicans who are evil but not dumb, and they know what Trump is doing here.

            • kbotc@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I think they all see Trump using the RNC coffers to pay his legal bills so they’re going to try and get money the other way: Sucking up to companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars and claim they brought jobs to their districts. You know, how our broken ass system has worked from the 1970s-2016.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    8 months ago

    bills to further fund both Ukraine’s defence and Israel’s military effort against Hamas would be brought up separately

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    House Republican leadership appears to be officially backing down from their demand for lawmakers to address border security before any further aid was passed to support Ukraine in its war against a Russian invasion.

    The news was made on Thursday at the House Republican retreat, with Speaker Mike Johnson telling reporters that bills to further fund both Ukraine’s defence and Israel’s military effort against Hamas would be brought up separately in the coming weeks.

    In December of last year, Mr Johnson had made that demand explicit, telling the White House in a letter: “[S]upplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws”.

    Donald Trump’s demand for Republicans to kill the bill to prevent his opponent from scoring a political victory in an election year is widely credited with much of the GOP opposition in the House.

    One member of his caucus, Marjorie Taylor Greene, as recently as January said that she would trigger a vote on a motion to remove Mr Johnson from his position as speaker if he were to put a bill to fund Ukraine’s military on the House floor.

    Mr Johnson could be in for a tough political fight if Ms Greene or another Republican brings a motion to vacate against him; the GOP’s majority in the House is now down to just five votes, thanks to the sudden resignation announcement of Rep Ken Buck.


    The original article contains 398 words, the summary contains 235 words. Saved 41%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • chakan2@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    In other words, they’re going to pass Israel aid, and fake the D’s out again on Ukraine aid. Zion has spoken.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    and Israel’s military effort genocide against Hamas the population of Gaza and some of the West Bank.

    There, fixed that for the christofascist scumbag.