Schumer to Push for Vote on Reduced Spending Bill

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is planning to force a vote Wednesday on a scaled-down bill that would allow funding for the war efforts in Israel and Ukraine while stripping out the border security provisions that would have been included in a compromise bill that has been under negotiation for weeks between Republicans and the White House.

NBC News, quoting a Senate Democrat aide, reports that Schumer told Democrats earlier Wednesday that he plans to present the procedural motion Wednesday afternoon. If it gets the votes it needs to be adopted it will set up a vote later this week for a supplemental aid package that also includes funding for Taiwan.

The vote on the narrower aid package will likely occur after the broader border aid bill comes up for its first procedural vote Wednesday afternoon.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had supported the $118 billion border security bill, which had faced strong opposition from former President Donald Trump and several Senate Republicans, said Tuesday afternoon he would support a supplemental aid bill that did not include the border security provisions.

“There are other parts of this supplemental they’re extremely important as well — Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan,” said McConnell, who is facing increasingly public attacks from his party over the border bill.

McConnell added that the border situation is important, “but we can’t get an outcome.”

Schumer’s version of the bill would still include funding to target fentanyl trafficking, according to the Senate Democrat aide.

The move comes after the House on Tuesday rejected a standalone bill for aid for Israel, with the measure coming in with a vote of 250-180, short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced the separate Israel bill after a tentative immigration/aid bill was announced.

The House bill would have allotted $17.6 billion in military aid for Israel and “important funding for U.S. forces in the region,” while lacking spending offsets Democrats opposed in past legislation proposals, according to Johnson’s office.