Speaker 1: The Senate has easily passed more than one point seven
Speaker 1: trillion dollar government funding package. Let's dig into this a
Speaker 1: bit because it still has a way to go. Joining
Speaker 1: us is Bloomberg's Eric Wasson, Eric, thanks so much. Now,
Speaker 1: this vote had the added flavor if I may say,
Speaker 1: of Vladimir Zelenski's a visit and speech last night, does
Speaker 1: this include that that aid for Ukraine? In fact it does. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's forty seven billion dollars to address the Ukraine situation.
Speaker 1: Not all of it goes directly to Zelenski's government to
Speaker 1: a twenty eight billion is in direct funding, but it
Speaker 1: goes to allies to boot boosting US troops in the region,
Speaker 1: refugee admission here in the US. But this is on
Speaker 1: top of sixty five billion so far this year. So
Speaker 1: it is another big infusion to help Ukraine, and it's
Speaker 1: heading for a House vote tomorrow morning. Now, straighten out
Speaker 1: for me that the patriot Mischels was a large deal
Speaker 1: or is a large d for President Zelenski? Is that
Speaker 1: part of this funding packages that separate? How does that work? Well,
Speaker 1: that was already paid for by previous funding. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Congress authorizes and appropriate this money, and then it's up
Speaker 1: to the Biden administration to to start dolling that out.
Speaker 1: So they announced some of the money going being released
Speaker 1: directly when Zelinski was was in town and that that
Speaker 1: was part of that. Now Zelenski is also pushing for abrams,
Speaker 1: tanks of sixteens, other weapons that to summon. The Defense
Speaker 1: Department are nervous about giving to Ukraine for fear of
Speaker 1: escalating the war um but at least Rob Portman, who
Speaker 1: was a major booster of the Ukraine effort, a Republican
Speaker 1: senator from Ohio, thinks that perhaps the visit will help
Speaker 1: the Ukraine to get those additional weapons and sometimes too,
Speaker 1: and this includes the electoral college revamp. That's right, and
Speaker 1: if if a listeners recall in January six, President Trump
Speaker 1: and his supporters were trying to convince the vice president
Speaker 1: to union latterly overturned the tooral college votes. There were
Speaker 1: some unclear writing in the in the US law about
Speaker 1: the role of the vice president. This this would clarify
Speaker 1: these purely ministerial ceremonial He has no power to do
Speaker 1: that and to try to ward off, you know, any
Speaker 1: repeat of the January six insurrections. Now this funds the
Speaker 1: government for the rest of fiscal three. Um. It still
Speaker 1: needs to go to the House. Do we have any
Speaker 1: idea on the timetable there? Yeah? It Well, it's going
Speaker 1: to It looks like it's gonna pass the House tomorrow morning,
Speaker 1: Friday morning, ahead of the deadline. They'll take a while
Speaker 1: for the bill to be printed on parchment as they
Speaker 1: still do. It's a four thousand, one and fifty page bill. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit longer do some amendments. So there
Speaker 1: will be a one week stop gap to give the
Speaker 1: time to do that, and Biden will have probably next
Speaker 1: week to sign this before the funding runs out. Now, Eric,
Speaker 1: this this is I'm going to do pie the sky
Speaker 1: with you here. Um. This was a pretty good in
Speaker 1: the Senate, at least bipartisan effort, and the hope would
Speaker 1: be that the two parties would maybe be able to
Speaker 1: make nice nice going on some stuff forward. Uh. Does
Speaker 1: this show a trend or is that just flatly Baxter naive?
Speaker 1: I think it's actually the opposite. I think Senate Republicans
Speaker 1: cut this deal to boost the military to seventy six
Speaker 1: billion dollar increase for the for defense. Uh. Now because
Speaker 1: they feel like there's going to be gridlocked, and once
Speaker 1: the House Republicans take over my personal forecasts, we're gonna
Speaker 1: see stopcap measures perhaps for the next two years as
Speaker 1: as both sides try to try to use the budget
Speaker 1: process to score policy wins. Uh you know, it's going
Speaker 1: to be very rocky. There could be a government shutdown
Speaker 1: when this bill expires September thirty ye, because we're seeing
Speaker 1: things like, uh, you know, attempts to build a border
Speaker 1: wall again, talked about defunding specific uh you know officials
Speaker 1: using the appropch process, and also clawing back the eight
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars that was granted the I R S
Speaker 1: to to go after wealthy tax evasion. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: those things are just non starters for Democrats and could
Speaker 1: just leap to gridlock. Yeah, okay, alright, well, so much
Speaker 1: for positive Thank you, thank you for the reality. Eric
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Eric Watson. We appreciate your help.