White House’s Ukraine aid bid heads straight for Hill morass

That leaves Democratic leaders caught in a bind, acknowledging that they’ll have to give Republicans a vote on Title 42 if the GOP follows through on its vow to block any pairing of Ukraine aid and Covid funding.

“Considering them together makes good sense. And I’d really regret that my Republican colleagues would try to mire them down with extraneous and irrelevant immigration issues,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said.

In the near term, many Democrats appear willing to dare Republicans to vote down a bill that includes the much-needed Ukraine military assistance. When asked about GOP threats to torpedo a Ukraine-Covid bill without immigration amendments, Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) quipped: “Republicans can vote against Ukraine.”

The White House views both the Ukraine and Covid measures as top priorities but is under pressure from Democrats who are uneasy about the administration’s plan to scrap Title 42. Administration officials have tried to assuage wobbly Democrats, but there’s real fear in the party that an amendment to keep the migration restrictions in place will win enough votes from the president’s side to go through.

And one senior administration official opened the door Thursday to splitting off Covid aid from the Ukraine package if necessary, hedging on Biden’s direct request for a marriage of the two.

“Whether it’s this vehicle or another, it just has to pass,” the official, speaking candidly on condition of anonymity, said of the Covid relief bill. “I think they look stupid for not passing it when it’s still the No. 1 concern and impact on living.”

And even though some Republicans have indicated they would support legislation that includes new Ukraine money, funding for Covid vaccines and therapeutics and a provision to keep Title 42 in place, that plan’s fate is uncertain in the House. There, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Hispanic Caucus are signaling members would oppose a package that includes GOP language to enshrine the border curbs.

Democrats’ decision on how to tee up various priorities will need to factor in the lower chamber’s tricky math. Together, those two groups represent more than 100 House Democrats. While it’s still unclear how many Progressive and Hispanic Caucus members would be willing to block a bill over immigration if one came to the floor, it could complicate party leaders’ plans to merge the Ukraine and pandemic relief.

House Democratic leaders have privately acknowledged to their members that more Covid aid would likely need to be attached to another must-pass bill in order to get it through the Senate, though there’s been no specific push yet to combine them. The House won’t address either issue until at least May 10, when lawmakers return after a weeklong recess.

In the midst of that uncertainty, Pentagon officials are warning that Biden has almost exhausted a key supply of money that provides weapons to Ukraine. As part of its new aid request, the White House also sought an additional $5 billion worth of power to quickly transfer that equipment to Ukraine from U.S. inventories, known as drawdown authority.

Lawmakers provided $3 billion in drawdown authority in March, but lawmakers were warned Wednesday that the fund could be depleted as soon as this week.

The latest White House ask comes after Congress allocated nearly $14 billion last month in emergency funding for Ukraine. In addition, Congress is continuing to approve legislation aimed at punishing Russia for what U.S. officials and lawmakers have described as war crimes in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the House passed a bill allowing the Biden administration to use Russian assets seized by the Justice Department to fund reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. The chamber is further slated on Thursday to pass separate legislation that would resurrect World War II-era authorities for the president vis-a-vis the war in Ukraine, a measure known as Lend-Lease.

That bill, which cleared the Senate unanimously earlier this month, allows the Pentagon to more quickly and efficiently shuttle weapons, equipment and other critical supplies to Ukraine.

Connor O’Brien, Alex Ward and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.