Friday, Apr 26th
Last update06:52:12 AM GMT
Congressional Glance
The US Senate has approved a $95bn (£76bn) foreign aid package that includes military support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation into law on Wednesday.
The Senate on Tuesday evening backed the measure passed by the US House of Representatives on Saturday.
It includes $61bn in military aid for Ukraine, which the Pentagon says can start being delivered to the war-torn nation "within days".
It passed in a bipartisan vote of 79-18.
The House approved a set of long-awaited foreign aid bills on Saturday that would send funds to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region after months of it being stalled by Republican infighting.
Passage of the bills also could cost Speaker Mike Johnson his leadership position and status as second in line to the presidency.
The bills mostly mirror an earlier foreign aid package the Senate passed earlier this year. But this one is broken up into pieces as an attempt by Johnson, R-La., to appease his conference by allowing GOP lawmakers to pick and choose what aspects of the bill they support.
Mike Gallagher has suggested that he is resigning from his seat in Congress because of death threats and swatting targeted at his family.
The Republican US representative for Wisconsin shared more insight into his decision to vacate his seat while talking with reporters on Tuesday, the NBC affiliate WLUK reported.
Gallagher, 40, said: “This is more just me wanting to prioritize being with my family ... I signed up for the death threats and the late-night swatting, but they did not. And for a young family, I would say this job is really hard.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) confronted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in a Wednesday hearing about her false claims that Nazism was rampant in Ukraine — an argument frequently touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify his country’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a House Oversight Committee hearing titled “Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare,” Moskowitz issued a searing rebuke of the Georgia congresswoman’s efforts to paint Ukrainians as Nazis and pushed back against her comparisons of Ukraine’s government to that of Nazi Germany.
There were two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas. Democrats voted to dismiss the first one in a 51-48 vote, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voting “present.” They successfully dismissed the second one as well, despite Murkowski joining her party in voting to proceed with this one.
Democrats moved to table the charges outright because Mayorkas’ actions as homeland security chief don’t rise to the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors, a view that even some Republicans share.
In remarks on the Senate floor ahead of the votes, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the effort to oust Mayorkas “the least legitimate, least substantive and most politicized impeachment trial in the history of the United States.”
More...
House Speaker Mike Johnson has announced a path forward on aid to Ukraine and Israel after months of delay because of GOP divisions. Iran's unprecedent attack on Israel over the weekend increased pressure on Congress to act.
Johnson plans to bring forward three separate bills on funding for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. A fourth national security bill would likely include a provision that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the U.S.
Lawmakers say there's renewed urgency in passing the aid to Israel after Saturday's attack.
"My phone melted over the weekend, you know, with all the members letting me know all their ideas," Johnson told reporters after the closed-door meeting with his members Monday evening. "It really was the will of my colleagues to vote on these measures independently and not have them all sandwiched together, as the Senate had done."
Johnson rolled out his proposal during a closed-door House GOP conference meeting on Monday, after months of delaying any decisions on the politically prickly topic.
The plan — according to two GOP lawmakers at the meeting — is to move the four bills under one procedural rule that would allow for an amendment process.
The fourth national security-related bill, according to one of the GOP lawmakers, would include a TikTok ban, a provision to allow the U.S. to use seized Russian assets to assist Ukraine, a lend-lease act for military aid and convertible loans for humanitarian relief.
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