The odds of the Senate's $95 billion foreign aid package becoming law were nearly eliminated Tuesday afternoon when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) shot it down.
Johnson stated in a hallway on Capitol Hill that the House is going to ignore the bill that the Senate enacted before dawn on Tuesday following an all-night session in favor of concentrating on the approaching funding deadlines, as Breitbart News reported.
“I certainly don’t right now,” Johnson told Punchbowl News when asked if he sees a scenario in which he would put the bill on the floor for a vote.
“We’re dealing with the appropriations process. We have immediate deadlines upon us in that. That’s where the attention of the House is in this moment.”
Johnson said late on Monday before the vote that the Senate was wasting its time working on a foreign aid package without first taking the steps needed to secure the border, stating “America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”
"History settles every account," McConnell said in a statement he issued following Tuesday morning's vote, as he celebrated his victory.
His package seems destined to die before it reaches a House vote, however, as history is expected to repeat itself with the legislation.
Breitbart News obtained an email from a McConnell aide that included an opinion piece by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
Hewitt argued that Johnson should make a selfless sacrifice by relinquishing his speakership in order to approve the enormous foreign aid measure.
The significant consequences of that action reveal McConnell's priorities.
House Democratic leaders have stated their intention to utilize all available procedural means in order to introduce the bill or an alternative type of foreign assistance. The discharge petition is the most probable of these tools.
A discharge petition would need a small number of Republicans to join Democrats in an unprecedented rebuke of the Speaker, but it would allow the bill to bypass Johnson and be brought to the floor.
The aid bill has its detractors among Democrats, most notably the party's expanding pro-Palestinian faction.
Johnson may have spoken, but McConnell is intent on carrying out his plan to keep the conflict in Ukraine going, which he views as a legacy-defining initiative.
If history repeats itself, the House would remain impasse for at least a few weeks, if not more, extending well beyond the March 1 deadline for government funding if Johnson were to relinquish his gavel.
According to his staffer's efforts, McConnell would be open to a government shutdown if it meant sending foreign governments tens of billions of dollars in aid.
The Senate Republican Conference, which McConnell heads, is not likely to support that stance.
