The Senate passed a significant spending package on Tuesday to send taxpayer money to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and it included a provision requiring the divestment of TikTok from the platform’s parent company, ByteDance.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) voted opposite from one another on the $95 billion spending package, with Cruz voting against the measure and Cornyn voting in favor.
“This is one of the toughest votes I’ve cast during my years in the Senate. It was a close call because there are good elements in the bill that I strongly support,” Cruz said in a statement. “[T]he decisive reason I could not support this bill is because it did nothing to secure the Texas-Mexico border. As I’ve said many times, we are facing an existential crisis — a full-on invasion — at our own southern border.”
Cruz offered a lengthy explanation for his no vote, citing the leading reasons he could not support the bill.
“First, the bill spends over $9 billion in so-called humanitarian aid, much of which will go to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and is sure to be diverted to fund yet more terrorism,” said Cruz. “Second, I am very concerned about the $3.4 billion reserved for ‘migration and refugee assistance.’ The Biden administration has historically used this funding to pour cash into NGOs that are assisting with illegal immigration at the Texas-Mexico border.”
However, he also noted that he supports sending military aid to Israel and Taiwan, as well as forcing the Chinese Communist Party to give up control of TikTok.
For his part, Cornyn defended his vote in a post on X.
“This has been a historic line of division between Americans — those who see anything that we do overseas as somehow neglecting our responsibilities at home… The truth is, we need to be able to do both,” he wrote.
The final vote on the aid package in the Senate was 79-18, with 15 Republicans and three Democrats voting against the bill, reported CNN. President Joe Biden signed the bill on Wednesday, as he had promised, shortly after the Senate voted in favor of the legislation.
“The need is urgent: for Ukraine, facing unrelenting bombardment from Russia; for Israel, which just faced unprecedented attacks from Iran; for refugees and those impacted by conflicts and natural disasters around the world, including in Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti; and for our partners seeking security and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” Biden said, per CNN.
