Blinken to China, Ukraine votes implications

L . Thomas Block

Last week the Congress demonstrated that it isn’t always dysfunctional when it passed the military supplemental aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. For good measure, Congress also threw in the mandate that TikTok get a new owner or be banned from the US. The TikTok ban likely came up this past week when Secretary of State Blinken was in China where he met both with President Xi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. 

The Blinken visit continues the Biden Administration policy of engagement with China and the fact that President Xi was willing to meet with the US Secretary of State is a positive signal.

On the legislative front, as someone who has followed DC since I served as a Congressional aide many years ago, I found the politics of the supplemental vote very interesting. In the House there was the dramatic shift in position for Speaker Mike Johnson who went from a Ukraine aid opponent to its key supporter. His effort to get the package passed received important support from both the White House and Democratic House Leader Jeffries.  The House and Senate votes were interesting where in the House the Speaker failed to get a “majority of the majority” with 112 Republicans voting against the Ukraine part of the Supplemental package.

In the Senate, under the leadership of Mitch McConnell, all but 15 of the 49 Republican Senators voted to support the package. 

When the House returns next week some of the most hardline conservative Republicans have threatened to once again force a vote on vacating the Office of Speaker. We will see.

Disclosures (show)