


The Senate passed a $95 billion national-security package Tuesday night, sending aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan after a months-long fight on Capitol Hill that was drawn out by gridlock and Republican opposition to Ukraine aid in both chambers.
The legislation, which passed in a 79-18 vote, will now go to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The upper chamber’s passage of the national-security package, which will also force the sale of the social media app TikTok from its Chinese owner, came just days after Speaker Mike Johnson successfully maneuvered the legislation through the House over the weekend, under threat of his own ouster from anti-Ukraine aid hardliners.
The House-passed version closely mirrored the national-security supplemental the Senate had passed by a 70-29 vote back in February. To muscle the package through the lower chamber amid vocal opposition from his rightmost flank over the $60 billion that will now go to Ukraine, Johnson held separate votes on different parts of the bill before eventually tying it all together in as one piece of legislation for the Senate to pass.
Today was a momentous day for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has spent recent weeks publicly pledging to spend his remaining days fighting back against isolationism within the GOP.
The outgoing Senate GOP leader took a victory lap after the bill’s package.
“This is an extremely important day in the history of our country and of the free world, they’re all watching, waiting to see what we would do,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening. “It’s time to reaffirm some basic truths. Alliances matter. Foreign nations’ respect for America’s interests defends on our willingness to defend them.”