Speaker Johnson claims that Democrats voted against Israel aid for political reasons

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., accused his chamber’s Democrats of blocking aid to Israel “for political purposes.”

The House on Tuesday voted 250-180 to reject a bill that required two-thirds majority to pass. Approval would have provided $17.6 billion in aid to Israel.

Democrats said they wanted a vote instead on a broader measure that would also provide assistance to Ukraine, international humanitarian funding and new money for border security.

A total of 166 House Democrats voted against the bill after President Joe Biden issued a veto threat and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would block the legislation from coming to his chamber’s floor.

Johnson announced the standalone bill after saying a Senate bipartisan bill, which addressed border security as well as aid to Ukraine and Israel, was “dead on arrival” in the House.

“Let’s be clear about what happened last night,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “The President of the United States threatened to veto on the Israel funding package. Chuck Schumer then said that he would put a blockade up in the Senate, and you had 166 House Democrats who followed [House Democrat] Leader Hakeem Jeffries off that cliff. They took that lead and they blocked the funding.”

Johnson said the standalone bill “provided exactly the amount of funding that the President himself had requested — it was $14.3 billion dollars that we passed three months ago.”

“And then we added to it, to replace our stockpiles and our munitions on what’s happening in that region,” the speaker said. “There is no reason whatsoever for them to object to the contents of that bill.

“They’re doing it for political purposes. It’s bad for national security. It’s also terrible policy and terrible politics. The President of the United States has a 37% approval rating. If they’re going to follow that lead, I think they did it to their detriment. And it’s a very shameful thing at a time when our ally Israel needs the help desperately.”

NBC News reported Wednesday that Schumer was planning to force a vote later in the day 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.

Republicans says Biden already has the power to address the migrant situation at the U.S.-Mexico border but refuses to act.

Reuters contributed to this story.