CNN
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Late Thursday night, the House Rules Committee passed a series of foreign aid bills out of committee using Democratic support, in a sign that Republicans in the chamber will need to rely on Democrats to pass the legislation.
Three Republicans – Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas – voted against the legislation in committee, but all Democrats on the panel voted for it. The three Republican hardliners on the panel had threatened to oppose a rule on the foreign aid bills.
The four bills head to the House floor on Friday for their first test on the floor with a rule vote. A vote on final passage is expected Saturday.
House Speaker Mike 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 exact timing is still being worked out.
According to the rule, if the bills pass the House, they will be combined into one amendment before being sent to the Senate.
Earlier Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus took an official stance 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 rule for the ‘America Last’ foreign wars supplemental package with zero border security, and urge all House Republicans to do the same,” the group said in a statement posted on X.
Three bills in the foreign aid package would provide aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, with the latter intended to help deter Chinese aggression in the area. A fourth bill includes other House GOP priorities, including sanctions on Iran, the seizure of frozen Russian sovereign assets and a measure that could lead to a nationwide ban of TikTok.
The three assistance bills are similar to the foreign aid legislation that passed the Senate in February. The fourth House bill was not part of the Senate package.
The three House aid bills add up to about $95 billion – the same amount the Senate bill included – with an adjustment that $10 billion in Ukraine economic assistance is in the form of a repayable loan, CNN has reported.
With Republicans controlling the House only by a razor-thin margin, Johnson will have to rely on a significant number of Democrats to get the bill through procedural hurdles, especially with a growing number of hardliners upset about border security provisions.
The fight over the bills – and the potential for right-wing members of the GOP to attempt to oust Johnson over it – adds up to the most intense pressure that the speaker has faced over his future in his short time in the role. Massie on Tuesday said he would co-sponsor Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate, which would boot Johnson from the speakership if it passed, leading the speaker to defiantly tell reporters that he would not be resigning.
CNN’s Haley Talbot, Katie Lobosco, Tami Luhby and Brian Fung contributed to this report.
