WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – On Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said a new national security bill, introduced by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers last week, might be Washington’s best bet to quickly get aid to Ukraine, Israel and the southern border.
Graham said he felt “very optimistic” after speaking to House colleagues, who were pushing the bill over the weekend. He suggested the group include more Trump-era border policies and convert the aid money into a loan, an idea floated by Donald Trump.
“Do Remain in Mexico, Title 42. That combination not only gets through the House, it picks up votes in the Senate,” said Graham.
Graham, who skipped out on an international security conference in Munich, Germany, to instead visit the southern border, is one of 29 Senate Republicans opposed to the Senate’s $95 billion foreign aid package because it excludes border funding.
As of Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was refusing to bring the bill up for a vote.
A small but growing group of Republicans and Democrats are backing the new bill in the House.
The bill, however, is likely a long shot because Democrats say it goes too far on border restrictions and excludes billions in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is demanding a ceasefire, calls the bill the worst option on the table. He says it “completely ignores human suffering.”
“President Biden, I think is getting increasingly desperate to send aid to Ukraine and we hope that desperation does not lead him to give into horrible bills. Whether those bills would lead abuses of immigrants at the border or bills that would send unconditional aid to the Netanyahu government,” says Mitchell.
The White House is currently resisting demands to renegotiate after Republicans sunk a bipartisan deal to secure the border and send money to Israel and Ukraine.
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