(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . 15 House Republicans hold key to Ukraine aid amid speaker turmoil [1] ['Daily Kos Staff'] Date: 2023-10-05 The prospects for approving Ukraine aid in the chaotic House led by Kevin McCarthy were already shaky. Now that McCarthy has been booted as House speaker and the chaos has deepened, that aid is in even more jeopardy. In the midst of McCarthy’s ouster Tuesday, President Joe Biden was trying to assure Ukraine—and the rest of the world—that the United States remains committed. x Today, I convened a call with allies and partners to coordinate our ongoing support for the people of Ukraine. We discussed getting Ukraine the resources it needs, and our work to address the global energy, economic, and food challenges caused by Russia's war of choice. — President Biden (@POTUS) October 3, 2023 Delivering on that is the challenge. On Wednesday, Biden teased a new approach from the White House. “I'm going to be announcing very shortly, a major speech I’m going to make on this issue and why it’s critically important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment” to Ukraine, Biden told reporters. He also suggested that the administration is exploring “another means” to get aid to Ukraine, but didn’t elaborate. In the short term, he’ll need to come up with something because the House probably won’t get to Ukraine aid for a while—not as long as the speaker fight continues. It also depends on who emerges victorious from that fight. The last House vote impacting Ukraine aid happened last week, when the Republican hard-liners forced that funding to be stripped out of the defense appropriations bill, and it passed as a stand-alone bill. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is being floated as a candidate for House speaker, supported the funding. The other rumored speaker candidate, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, did not. On Wednesday Jordan went further and told Bloomberg that if elected speaker, he would block Ukraine aid. One hundred and one Republicans—including most of leadership—did vote to continue aid, as did every Democrat. So did 15 members out of the Biden 18, those first-term Republicans who are serving in districts that Biden won in 2020. Here’s yet another issue where those members are not aligned with their Republican majority. That puts those 15 members in a position—again—to act like Americans instead of Republicans. They’ve got the incentive to save themselves electorally, and they’ve got the controlling bloc of votes in the House. Instead of echoing the rest of their party’s hissy fits, they should be seeing what they can get from an alliance with Democrats. Sign the petition to Congress: Support funding for Ukraine [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2197427/-Ukraine-aid-up-in-the-air-as-House-chaos-drags-on?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/