In the News
House congressional leaders were toiling Thursday on a delicate, bipartisan push toward weekend votes to approve a $95 billion package of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as several other national security policies at a critical moment at home and abroad.
The fate of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as Speaker Mike Johnson’s job appears to be in the hands of House Democrats, as Johnson aims to pass billions of dollars to support U.S. allies this week.
Johnson, R-La., told Republicans in a conference meeting Tuesday that the House would hold individual votes on four bills — aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and then a fourth bill with a mix of items — and then combine them into one package to send over to the Senate.
House Democratic leaders said Tuesday that they’re ready to embrace Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) strategy of splitting an emergency foreign aid package into targeted pieces, but first want assurances that all the components of a Senate-passed bill are a part of the deal.
The Democrats have, for weeks, pushed Johnson to bring a vote on the $95 billion Senate package, which combines military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan with humanitarian assistance for Gaza and other global hotspots.
A two-week recess has come to a close for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday, including Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, who spoke with NBC10 Boston.
The representative wrapped up her time in Massachusetts touting $900,000 in child care investments.
"It's coming right here to SMOC in Framingham, to this child care center that serves 300 children," said Clark.
The House Democratic whip said Thursday that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is free to invite the Israeli prime minister to address Congress, but argued the greater show of support for Israel would be to vote on a foreign-aid package awaiting action in the House.
“There is one group in Congress that is holding up that national security supplement that is needed, desperately, by the people of Ukraine and so many of our other allies. And that is the House GOP,” Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.) told reporters in the Capitol.
Speaker Mike Johnson got Democratic help to pass a $78 billion tax bill. He did the same on a bill that could ban TikTok. He did it on three stopgap government spending bills. And he’s about to do it again on his second federal funding deal in one month.
President Joe Biden will call on Congress to allow Medicare to increase its ability to negotiate drug prices and to expand caps on consumer prescription drug costs during his State of the Union address Thursday.
Democrats plan to put reproductive freedom front and center at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night.
Democrats want to remind voters of their efforts to protect access to abortion and most recently have seized on the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos are children.
They are looking to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire and force them to answer uncomfortable questions about the full impact of fetal personhood.
Democratic House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, U.S. representative from Massachusetts, and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12) met with YMCA providers, the New Jersey Department of Human Services (NJDHS), local families and officials on the need for federal funding to support child care providers and programs.