In a sweeping reversal, nine senators who were against sending aid to Ukraine flipped their stance and voted in favor of the aid on Tuesday.
The vote passed with a wide 79-18 majority. The Republican senators who were against sending aid and then voted in favor are Sens. Katie Britt (R-AL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), James Lankford (R-OK), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), and Pete Ricketts (R-NE).
“It’s just so much easier to go back home and say, ‘Listen, we’re asking people to pay us back when they can if they can,’” Graham said. “This is just a much better package. It’s more robust for Israel.”
“This legislation, while imperfect, will make critical strides to reestablish credible American deterrence and move us closer to restoring the peace through strength that President Biden inherited,” Britt said in a statement that did not mention why she changed her stance on Ukraine.
Lankford was against sending Ukraine and Israel aid before the southern border was addressed.
Former President Donald Trump’s recent distance from commenting on the legislation may have helped shift gears toward more Republican support. Some Republicans believe Trump’s silence gave cover over their political flip from “no” to “yes.”
“What Donald Trump did was he stayed out of it,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who was previously opposed to the legislation, told Punchbowl News. “I think it was smart politically because he’s not president of the United States. What’s smart for him is to maintain flexibility.”
Trump was previously opposed to Ukraine aid but did not attempt to end the legislation as he did with the bipartisan border bill.
“I think the former president had sort of mixed views on [Ukraine aid],” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said. “And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all. That took months to work our way through it.”
He also defended House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for bringing forth the bill despite opposition from some House Republicans.
“More important than what I think about the speaker is what the former president thinks about the speaker,” McConnell said. “And he obviously made it clear that he was a fan of Speaker Johnson and suggested some of his critics to shut up. So I’ll just quote the former president.”