{"id":24194,"date":"2024-02-26T20:12:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T02:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24194"},"modified":"2024-02-26T20:13:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T02:13:05","slug":"biden-is-summoning-congressional-leaders-to-the-white-house-to-talk-ukraine-and-government-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24194","title":{"rendered":"Biden is summoning congressional leaders to the White House to talk Ukraine and government funding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden<\/a> will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to press lawmakers on passing an emergency aid package for Ukraine<\/a> and Israel,<\/a> as well as averting a looming government shutdown next month, according to a White House official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top four leaders include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the meeting, the president will discuss the \u201curgency\u201d of passing the aid package, which has bipartisan support, as well as legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of September, said the White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet publicly confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican-led House is under pressure to pass\u00a0the $95 billion national security package<\/a>\u00a0that bolsters aid for Ukraine, Israel as well as the Indo-Pacific. That legislation cleared the Senate on a 70-29 vote earlier this month, but Johnson has been resistant to putting up the aid bill for a vote in the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is one of those instances where one person can bend the course of history. Speaker Johnson, if he put this bill on the floor, would produce a strong, bipartisan majority vote in favor of the aid to Ukraine,\u201d Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan stressed that Ukrainians need weapons and ammunition to fend off Russian forces, and that in his personal conversations with the speaker, he \u201chas indicated that he would like to get the funding for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separate from the national security package, the first tranche of government funding is due to expire Friday. The rest of the federal government, including agencies such as the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires on March 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter to his colleagues sent Sunday, Schumer said there was not yet an agreement to avoid a partial shutdown of the agencies whose funding expires this week. That includes the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile we had hoped to have legislation ready this weekend that would give ample time for members to review the text, it is clear now that House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out,\u201d Schumer wrote in the letter. The Senate majority leader called on Johnson to \u201cstep up to once again buck the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing\u201d by greenlighting funding to keep the government open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson said Schumer\u2019s letter was \u201ccounterproductive\u201d and said Democrats were pushing their own unrealistic policy demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not a time for petty politics,\u201d Johnson said in a statement. \u201cHouse Republicans will continue to work in good faith and hope to reach an outcome as soon as possible, even as we continue to insist that our own border security must be addressed immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to press lawmakers on passing an emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel, as well as averting a looming government shutdown next month, according to a White House official. The top four leaders include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24196,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1761,1169,1239,1416],"class_list":["post-24194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-aid","tag-biden","tag-israel","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24197,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24194\/revisions\/24197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}