Speaker Mike Johnson to put forth Israel aid bill next week, leaves out Ukraine aid

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will push legislation providing $17.6 billion in military assistance for Israel with no funding offsets or any additional aid to Ukraine.

The legislation is a departure from Johnson’s previous position that any funding for Israel contains a provision to pay for the funding. The bill will be considered on the House floor next week and omits continued U.S. assistance to Ukraine, a top priority for the Biden administration that has seen falling support among the Republican ranks.

“The need to support our closest ally and our own forces in the region has never been more pressing, and many members of our conference have urged immediate action,” Johnson said in a letter to GOP members.

Should the bill pass the House, it will put significant pressure on the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden to approve aid for Israel which has widespread bipartisan support. House Republicans have balked at a bipartisan border deal from the Senate that seeks to tie both Ukraine and Israel aid to changes in migrant policy – Johnson's announcement further endangers any hopes of passing the Senate's deal.

The GOP-controlled House passed an Israel aid bill last year that provided over $14 billion in assistance to the country after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The bill paid for the funding by clawing back money from the Internal Revenue Service that originally came from the Inflation Reduction Act,  milestone legislation championed by Biden and Democrats. The bill passed mostly along party lines, with a handful of Democrats supporting the measure begrudgingly.

Had the bill contained no provisions to pay for the aid, it would have likely garnered significant bipartisan support in the House and could have forced the Senate to pass it.

But the offset left the aid bill unpalatable for Senate Democrats who dismissed it as a “poison pill” that ultimately stalled assistance to the key U.S. ally. The move even garnered some criticism from some House Republicans who argued a clean bill – without any spending cuts – should have been passed in the first place. Since then, Congress has yet to pass any legislation aiding Israel.

“Given the Senate’s failure to move appropriate legislation in a timely fashion, and the perilous circumstances currently facing Israel, the House will continue to lead. Next week, we will take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package," Johnson said in the letter.

Senate reaction to a clean Israel funding bill is uncertain as the bipartisan deal to tie aid to Israel and other U.S. allies to border and migrant policy changes is set to be unveiled sometime this weekend. 

Those talks, which began four months ago between a small group of bipartisan senators, have been a frequent point of criticism from House Republicans who have scrutinized the deal over leaks about its migrant policy changes, saying its apparent measures would not go far enough to address the crisis at the southern border.

"While the Senate appears poised to finally release text of their supplemental package after months of behind closed doors negotiations, their leadership is aware that by failing to include the House in their negotiations, they have eliminated the ability for swift consideration of any legislation," Johnson said of the border talks in the letter.