Lemire: ‘Real concerns’ about ‘what the US really stands for’ if congress fails to pass foreign aid

we start today with NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan nobl way too early host and political White House bureau chief Jonathan lir and former Republican congressman and MSNBC political analyst David Jolly welcome all to Ryan an allnighter uh this was like you know the last days before final exams the bill had overwhelming support in the Senate Majority Leader Schumer telling you that he's confident there's enough support in the house how much pressure does that put on the speaker and do th

ey have the votes 218 votes is a high bar yeah I mean Andrea I think that that's the hope that the majority leader Chuck Schumer has that the fact that 22 Senate Republicans supported this legislation would be a message to the house Speaker Mike Johnson that he at least needs to give this package its opportunity to get an up or down vote on the floor but just based on Johnson's initial reaction to this package the skepticism uh that he seems to be applying to it it seems unlikely that it'll just

be that simple that they'll just put the bill on the floor and let the members decide there's the possibility that they attempt to change it in some way with a a level of amendments connected to it or that they break it up into individual pieces and put those on the floor I think all that's a possibility right now but obviously any of that would complicate this matter greatly and it took so much work to get to the point where they could pass this legislation in the Senate that any additional ch

anges to it in the house make it even that much less likely of getting finally passed and the given the opportunity to the president uh to sign it into law so uh this was no doubt an incredibly big hurdle that this legislation uh passed over uh in the early morning hours here on Capitol Hill but it still has a very uphill battle in the House of Representatives a hill I should point out right now that seems very murky at best Andrea and David discharge petitions are really really rare because it

requires 218 votes most house votes pass shy of that um do you think it'll work this time or could Donald Trump again intervene block a legislative win for the president and also U I guess block attempt to take down the speaker yeah Andrea I'm I remain a skeptic that a discharge petition with this Republican house ever will work particularly on this legislation because it requires several Republicans to break from their own party now what what is it going in favor of a discharge petition frankly

are the enormous numbers of Republican retirements and some of them are your somewhat relatively mainstream they're still Maga but they understand governing some appropriators that are leaving some chair chairs of committees who are leaving do they say look hating Ukraine and Israel is just so important I'm willing to break with my party now I'm not standing for reelection Andrea the best thing that could happen to Speaker Mike Johnson is a discharge petition because then he's not responsible f

or bringing it up for a vote but absent a discharge petition this is the quandry for speaker Johnson it would be up to him to bring up a vote on legislation that overwhelmingly Democrats will provide the votes to pass and he just doesn't seem like he's going to do that I'm I'm very worried sometime today we're going to hear the words debt on arrival and at that point I don't know where the House and Senate go with this critical funding for our for our allies and Jonathan you've heard from the pr

esident today in a statement urging the house to move on this saying we canot afford to wait any longer the cost of inaction are rising every day especially in Ukraine um is what is he doing is he reaching out to people I can recall you know previous presidents bringing them up one by one working them over you know they've got some leverage a lot of these House and Senate members in particular are going to Munich towards the end of the week Thursday they're going to face Ukrainian leaders they'r

e going to face the world opinion NATO leaders you know and you've got h deal in play Israel's in play there's there's so many deadlines here yeah there really are President Biden of course has been consistent throughout this process calling for Congress to act saying that the United States must be good keep its word it needs to fulfill its obligations and it made a promise to Ukraine to be there until the end of the war and now that seems really in doubt and we are getting reports by the day ab

out the the turn the tide of War turning a little bit in Russia's favor that they've been able to reclaim some territory from the ukrainians and there's desperate need from keev to get more supplies and ammunition it soldiers literally running out of bullets right now um the White House in after the first summer of 2021 where they were dealt some legislative defeats they have found that they've been more successful taking sort of a hands-off backseat role that the president if he's out there too

much too lobbying too much in intensively to Republicans that would actually turn them off that it would be easier for them to oppose something that President Biden so desperately wants certainly some of his senior Aid Steve ret senior counselor Jeff Z the chief of staff I think they'll be making Entre to Congress you know certainly particularly Republicans who are try represent Biden districts that the president won back in 2020 um but there's not great optimism here from the westwing AIDS tha

t I speak to they don't believe speaker Johnson will act in good faith here in their estimation they seem that it's un probably unlikely that he'll bring a vote to the floor a discharged petition as you just noted also a tough Hill to climb um and and then there are real concerns about what that means on the the world stage uh in terms of for Ukraine and also other American Allies and adversaries alike looking at this and wondering what the US really stands for going forward that said they're al

so domestic political aspect they feel like this is an issue they can use to go after Republicans and say look the GOP they walked away from the border deal and now they're abandoning our allies and David Jolly there's a special election today in a very snowy New York congressional district in Long Island to fill the seat held by disgrace former Congressman George santz if Democrats flip that seat it Narrows speaker Johnson's already slim majority it's in single digits even further you were firs

t elected in a similar special election in Florida you held the seat for the Republicans against an Obama victory that Year what's your prediction today yeah well look the polls show that Democrats are positioned to do well this is one of the districts that Jonathan mentioned that Joe Biden had won but this race sure it's about tonight and does speaker Johnson have a two- seat majority or one seat but is all about November I can tell you what has been happening in that race is the national parti

es and all of the outside groups are message testing for November it's why you see the issue of immigration in that District being the number one issue in this race it's because the national parties want a message tests and and they will learn from their mistakes they will learn what didn't work and they will learn what works if Democrats indeed take back this seat like we have seen them perform in special elections frankly since the Dos decision that is a very good signal for Democrats going in

to November if Republicans hold it it suggests for Democrats you you still have some work to do