After successfully adopting a war powers resolution Wednesday aimed at reining in President Donald Trump’s military authority in Iran, House Democrats again bypassed GOP leaders on Thursday, delivering another rebuke of the president by advancing aid for Ukraine and new sanctions on Russia.
The House passed the Ukraine legislation 226-195, with 18 Republicans joining all but one Democrat — Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — in support of the bill.
The measure, led by Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York — the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — would provide military and reconstruction aid to Ukraine while imposing new sanctions on Russia, including its oil and mining sectors.
Ahead of the vote, Meeks framed the debate as a question of whether members of Congress “stand for our values.”
“The invasion of a smaller democratic nation by a large authoritarian state is as black and white and pure and simple as it gets,” Meeks said during the House floor debate.
The Republicans who crossed party lines to back the legislation on final passage included Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb.; Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa.; Mike Carey, R-Ohio; Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.; Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y.; Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla.; Jeff Hurd, R-Colo.; David Joyce, R-Ohio; Jen Kiggans, R-Va.; Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.; Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.; Michael McCaul, R-Texas; Max Miller, R-Ohio; Dan Newhouse, R-Wash.; Glenn Thompson, R-Pa.; Mike Turner, R-Ohio; and Joe Wilson, R-S.C.
But House GOP leadership opposed the bill. In May, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., expressed concern about the timing of the vote.
“It looks like the war is scaling back, scaling down, coming to a conclusion,” Johnson said. “I think Vladimir Putin said that himself in the last few days, and so this would be a good time for Congress to see how that pans out.”
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed that argument, calling the legislation an effort to “tie the president’s hands” and urging lawmakers to oppose it.
“In the end, I don’t think it’s something that anybody should vote for,” Mast said.
Eighteen Republicans, 207 Democrats and one Independent disagreed, with lawmakers arguing that Thursday’s vote was long overdue.
Meeks first introduced the bill in April 2025, but it languished in committee as Republican leaders refused to bring it up for consideration.
By July 2025, Meeks had turned to a discharge petition — a procedural maneuver in which lawmakers can go around House leadership to force consideration of legislation if they can round up the signatures of 218 lawmakers.
(Discharge petitions are typically rare, but this Congress has broken records, with Democrats taking advantage of the chamber’s tight margins to force action on their priorities, such as Obamacare subsidies and the Epstein files.)
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In May, Meeks secured the crucial 218th signature when Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California Republican turned independent, signed on.
Despite clearing the House, the measure faces steep odds. It must still pass the Senate and ultimately would require Trump’s signature.
In the Senate, a separate Russia sanctions bill has likewise stalled. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — a leader of the Senate effort — told reporters last month there were parts of Meeks’ bill that he likes and “parts of it that I don’t.”
Regardless of the Ukraine aid’s prospects, Thursday’s vote marked the latest congressional challenge to Trump in a week unusually marked by Republican dissent.
In addition to the war powers vote Wednesday, bipartisan opposition forced the administration to back away from its proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” settlement fund, while Trump’s selection of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence has also drawn criticism from several Republicans who question his qualifications.
But those flashes of criticism have not quite produced lasting constraints on the president.
During the Senate’s reconciliation debate — which was taking place as the House voted on the Ukraine bill — Republicans have thus far defeated efforts to block the $1.8 billion fund, strip away IRS audit protections for Trump and his family or prevent Pulte from taking the intelligence post.
The episode underscores a familiar reality: A small number of Republicans remain willing to break with Trump, but the overwhelming majority continue to back him.
Still, the Ukraine bill was a reminder that, in a narrowly divided Congress, it does not take many GOP defections to change a legislative outcome.
Syedah Asghar contributed to this report.
Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.