The House of Representatives voted in a bipartisan manner on Friday to approve a major foreign aid package, a key step in sending aid to Ukraine and Israel and setting up a final vote as early as Saturday.
In an extraordinary move, more Democrats (165) supported the measure than Republicans (151). The Democratic votes were needed to overcome opposition from Speaker Mike Johnson’s right flank, which will likely only intensify their calls for him to be impeached.
The battle over the bills — and the opportunity for right-wing members of the Republican Party to try to unseat Johnson over them — adds to the most intense pressure the speaker has faced over his short time in office future. Rep. Thomas Massie said Tuesday he would co-sponsor Rep.’s motion. Marjorie Taylor Greene to resign, which would remove Johnson from the speakership if passed, prompting the speaker to defiantly tell reporters he would not resign.
Greene left the US Capitol after the vote on Friday without moving to impeach Johnson.
The Republican Party-led House Rules Committee also tapped Democratic support late Thursday night to advance the bills.
The move is likely to further inflame Conservatives who oppose extra aid to Ukraine and have put Johnson’s job in jeopardy over the issue.
The committee’s activities capped another contentious day on Capitol Hill, as renewed pressure to send foreign aid to Ukraine divided Republicans in the House of Representatives. The right wing of the Republican conference has spoken out against the plan and expressed anger over a separate attempt to change House rules regarding the process for removing the speaker — a rule change that Johnson said Thursday he would not make.
Three Republicans — Massie, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas — voted against the foreign aid legislation in committee Thursday evening, but all Democrats on the panel voted in favor.
Three bills in the foreign aid package would provide support to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, with the latter aimed at helping deter Chinese aggression in the region. A fourth bill includes other House priorities, including sanctions on Iran, the seizure of frozen Russian state assets and a measure that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok.
The three House relief bills total about $95 billion — the same amount that was included in the Senate bill — with an adjustment that $10 billion in economic aid to Ukraine would be in the form of a repayable loan, reports said CNN.
The three aid bills are similar to the foreign aid legislation passed by the Senate in February. The fourth House bill was not part of the Senate package.
Johnson, appearing on Newsmax, suggested the timing for a vote on the package would be “early Saturday.” He did not elaborate, and his office told CNN that the exact timing was still being worked out.
Under the rule, if the bills pass the House, they are combined into one amendment before being sent to the Senate.
Earlier Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus took an official position urging House Republicans to oppose the procedural vote, arguing “to secure the border we must kill the rule.”
“The House Freedom Caucus will vote NO on the ‘America Last’ supplemental package rule for zero border security foreign wars, and will urge all Republicans in the House of Representatives to do the same,” the group said in a statement. posted on X.
With Republicans controlling the House of Representatives by only a razor-thin margin, Johnson will have to rely on a significant number of Democrats to push the bill through procedural hurdles, especially as a growing number of hardliners are angry about its border security provisions.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Haley Talbot, Katie Lobosco, Tami Luhby and Brian Fung contributed to this report.
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