WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden implored the House of Representatives to “immediately” pass the sweeping national security package that cleared the Senate on Tuesday.
But the White House isn’t getting in the trenches with legislators to clear roadblocks, instead hoping public pressure gets the job done.
“This is a critical act for the House to move,” Biden said. “It needs to move.”
The Senate pushed through a roughly $95 billion aid bill early Tuesday morning, but the legislation faces slim prospects in the House. It’s the second iteration of a compromise in as many weeks after a similar version that packaged border security provisions with foreign spending failed behind strong opposition from House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson hasn’t explicitly come out to oppose the latest proposal since it passed the Senate, but has generally opposed foreign aid spending without border security legislation.
“The mandate of national security supplemental legislation was to secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world,” he said in a statement Monday. “It is what the American people demand and deserve.”
Biden said the funding isn’t just a payment to foreign allies, but would invest domestically in manufacturing missiles and artillery shells in Alabama, Arizona, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.
“That not only supports American jobs and American communities, it allows us to invest in maintaining and strengthening our own defense manufacturing capacity,” he said.
Biden urged Johnson not to hold up the legislation to appease “a minority of the most extreme voices in the House.”
“There’s no question if the Senate bill was put on the floor in the House of Representatives, it would pass,” Biden said. “The speaker knows that.”
The legislation would allocate roughly $60 billion for Ukraine to fight against Russia and $14 billion for Israel, which has faced scrutiny for the civilian toll of its war against Hamas in Gaza.
The White House and administration officials were hopeful that the legislation would eventually reach the president’s desk, but also didn’t offer any assurances they would work with legislators to get it across the finish line.
“We have to put public pressure here,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “We should not be playing politics with our national security.”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called it a “pretty optimistic sign” that the legislation cleared the Senate. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller noted that although funding for Ukraine and Israel are the highlights of the bill, it also contains humanitarian assistance, particularly for Palestinians in Gaza.
“We think that funding is important to obtain from Congress,” he said. “Ultimately this bill is worthy of support because of all the good things it does.”
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