President Joe Biden announced Monday evening that he would veto the House’s stand-alone aid bill for Israel if the legislation makes it to his desk.
The White House opposed the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act as tensions escalated surrounding the Senate’s supplemental funding bill, which couples aid for Israel with security assistance for Ukraine, humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, and spending and policy provisions to secure the southern border.
House Republicans and a growing list of GOP senators, backed by former President Donald Trump, have come out in opposition to the Senate-negotiated bill, and the White House, in turn, has accused Republicans opposing the bill of playing “political games” ahead of the 2024 general election.
“The Administration spent months working with a bipartisan group of senators to reach a national security agreement that secures the border and provides support for the people of Ukraine and Israel, while also providing much-needed humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by conflicts around the world,” the statement reads.
“Instead of working in good faith to address the most pressing national security challenges, this bill is another cynical political maneuver. The security of Israel should be sacred, not a political game,” the White House continued. “The Administration strongly opposes this ploy which does nothing to secure the border, does nothing to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against Putin’s aggression, fails to support the security of American synagogues, mosques, and vulnerable places of worship, and denies humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is planning for a stand-alone vote on aid to Israel this week, a change of course from November when the House passed a $14.3 billion aid bill to Israel that included spending cuts to the IRS, which Senate Democrats decried as a “poison pill” policy rider.
The Israel-only vote reflects the House GOP’s opposition to the broader $118 billion supplemental bill. Republicans in particular object to a provision within Biden’s border bill they claim will admit 5,000 illegal immigrants into the country a day. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), one of the lead Republican negotiators, rejected those claims and urged Republicans to “go through” the text of the bill “themselves.”
“Don’t just go off a Facebook post somewhere on what the bill says,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “This dramatically changes asylum and dramatically changes deportations. We no longer have a 10-year backlog. It builds more wall. Those are the key things that it actually does, but read it for yourself. Don’t just believe what’s online.”
Johnson released a joint statement with the rest of the House GOP leadership team Monday declaring the legislation “dead on arrival” and instead pushing their bill, which would supply Israel with additional aid in its war against Hamas.
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Trump himself has suggested that Biden’s border bill is a political “trap” laid for Republicans ahead of November.
“The ridiculous ‘Border’ Bill is nothing more than a highly sophisticated trap for Republicans to assume the blame on what the Radical Left Democrats have done to our Border, just in time for our most important EVER Election,” he wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “Don’t fall for it!!!”
