Austin, Blinken to Press Congress on Ukraine, Israel Aid

President Joe Biden's secretaries of Defense and State on Tuesday will visit Capitol Hill to deliver key testimony about administration's call for foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine before a Senate panel.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be advocating for President Joe Biden's $105 billion foreign aid package request when they appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee. The package bundles aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan with border security funding.

The aid request faces opposition from Republicans in Congress, with the newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and others in the House supporting a bill that would provide aid to Israel but not Ukraine. Republicans in the Senate have been more vocally supportive of Ukrainian aid.

“We need money for Israel, we need money for Ukraine, and we need to secure our own border," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told NBC News. "And we need to help Taiwan counter China. At the end of the day, all of those things have to be done. Not some of them, but all of them.”

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., told the Associated Press that she is co-writing a bill to include the requested aid with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“Make no mistake, we need to address all of these priorities as part of one package — because the reality is these issues are all connected, and they are all urgent,” said Murray