House leadership looking at removing Ukraine aid from defense bill amid pushback

House leadership is looking at removing Ukraine aid from the Department of Defense appropriations bill amid pushback from members of the Republican conference.

Faced with the reality that there isn’t the votes to pass the defense appropriations bill due to it including $300 million to train Ukrainian soldiers, House Leadership is now looking at a last-ditch effort to garner support for the annual Pentagon funding bill which would remove the provision from the bill and bring it up for a separate vote, according to two senior GOP members involved in the discussions, Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA) and Tom Cole (R-OK).

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Nothing is set in stone, but Calvert, who chairs the Appropriation Subcommittee on Defense, said that “those discussions are ongoing” and that it would ultimately be a Leadership decision.

Cole, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, also confirmed those talks are ongoing, and they would do it by pulling that provision out of the bill and sticking it in a separate vehicle that would be guaranteed a vote in the same timeframe.

“It’s not going away, and we still have more people that support it than don’t,” Cole said. “But this is an effort to bring those that aren’t on board with that particular thing but are overall fine with the bill, to give them a face-saving by voting for the bill and still being able to vote on Ukraine.”

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There was an amendment to the defense appropriation bill the House voted down that would have stripped the Ukraine aid from the bill. But, when that failed, a number of members expressed they could not vote for the bill, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who voted against the rule.

There will be a House Rule Committee meeting later Wednesday, where this will could report a further rule and have the provision be taken out of the bill and put it in a separate vehicle.