US Senate advances wartime aid package for Ukraine and Israel

The Senate on Thursday advanced a wartime aid package for Ukraine and Israel, reviving an effort that had stalled amid Republican opposition to a border security bill they demanded and later abandoned.

A day after blocking a measure that would have paired harsh new border restrictions with security assistance for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to begin consideration of the $95bn emergency aid bill. Several Republicans who voted to block the broader border package agreed to open debate on the foreign policy-only version of the measure after securing the opportunity to propose changes, including the immigration enforcement measures that were stripped out.

With Kyiv begging Washington for help battling Russian forces on the frontline, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, hailed the preliminary vote as a “good first step”. But its prospects remained unclear as Republicans threatened to force a lengthy amendment process.

“Failure to pass this bill would only embolden autocrats like [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin and [China’s] Xi [Jinping], who want nothing more than America’s decline,” Schumer said following the vote. He added: “We are going to keep working on this bill until the job is done.”

But numerous hurdles remain before the bill can pass the Senate. Some hard-right Republicans, who opposed both the bipartisan border bill and the standalone foreign aid package, made clear that they would not allow the Senate to fast-track the proposal. Their procedural maneuvering could push the timeline for the bill’s passage into next week.

“I’ll object to anything speeding up this rotten foreign spending bill’s passage,” Senator Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, said on X. “It’s a terrible idea to put forward and pass a bill that tries to secure other countries’ borders before we secure our own. We need to address our problems here at home in a REAL way.”

If the Senate passes the bill, it would face further uncertainty in the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority and have been increasingly opposed to sending additional aid to Ukraine. The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said that his caucus members were “prepared to use every available legislative tool to make sure we get comprehensive national security legislation over the finish line”.

“The time has come for extreme Maga [‘Make America Great Again’] Republicans and the pro-Putin caucus to end the political stunts and come together in a bipartisan manner to support America’s national security priorities,” Jeffries said.

Related: Republicans’ standalone Israel aid bill fails in House vote

The Thursday session came a day after the Senate voted 49 to 50 against advancing the bipartisan border bill. Sixty votes were required to start debate on the bill, but 44 Senate Republicans and six of their Democratic colleagues blocked the legislation from moving forward. Just four Senate Republicans – including James Lankford, a Republican of Oklahoma, who helped broker the border deal – supported advancing the bill.

Schumer initially supported the bill’s advancement, but he then changed his vote, a procedural maneuver that would allow him to take up the legislation again later. In a floor speech delivered on Wednesday before the vote, Schumer criticized Republicans for opposing the bipartisan bill and accused them of doing Donald Trump’s political bidding. The former president had called on Republicans to oppose the border deal out of concern for how it might affect the presidential race and his campaign’s focus on the issue of immigration.

“Donald Trump doesn’t like that the Senate finally reached a bipartisan border deal. So he has demanded Republicans kill it,” Schumer said. “He thinks it’s far better to keep the border in chaos so he can exploit it for personal political gains. And Senate Republicans – vertebrae nowhere to be found – are ready to blunder away our best chance of fixing the border in order to elevate what they see as the interests of Donald Trump above the interests of the country.”

Many Democrats expressed exasperation with Republicans’ insistence that the foreign aid package include border security provisions just one day after they killed a proposal that would address both issues. Following the failed vote on Wednesday, the senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the negotiating team, attacked Republicans as “dysfunctional”.

“The American people want us to solve tough problems like fixing the broken asylum system, and it’s shameful Republicans would rather yell about the border on cable news than pass legislation,” Murphy said. “But the future of global stability and desperately needed humanitarian aid hangs in the balance, so I am ready to pass a supplemental funding bill with or without the border provisions.”