On Tuesday, billions of dollars in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan advanced in the US Senate, heading for a final vote after the House of Representatives abruptly ended a months-long stalemate and approved the assistance last week.
The House passed the four bills approved by the Senate, voting 80 to 19, which is much more than the 60 votes required to allow for a vote on final passage as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
President Joe Biden asked the Senate to quickly advance the measures to his desk. About $26 billion of the package goes to Israel, currently in conflict with Hamas in Gaza, $61 billion goes to Ukraine, and $8 billion goes to allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
A fourth bill would take Russian assets to aid Ukraine in recovering from the devastation of the war, impose sanctions on China, Russia, and Iran, and require the US to ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company does not sell it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had a fulsome press conference following the procedural vote in which he expressed his belief that his party is starting to rebuff the trends of isolationism he has opposed.
He insisted that he thinks progress has been made, although he acknowledged that his party's isolationist streak still exists.
"If you're looking for a trend, I think it's a trend in the direction that I would like to see us go, which is America steps up to its leadership role in the world and does what it needs to do," McConnell said.
He claimed that they have turned the corner on this argument. Furthermore, he said that he believes they have turned the corner on the isolationist movement and noticed how uncomfortable proponents of that movement are when people call them isolationists.
