A group of right-wing House Republicans pushing to load up the annual defense bill with socially conservative policies on abortion, race and gender have another demand: severe restrictions on U.S. military support for Ukraine.
The pressure has set the stage for a divisive floor fight beginning as soon as Thursday over backing for the war effort just as President Biden tries to rally European allies to support Kyiv in its conflict with Russia.
The group’s proposals on military aid stand no chance of passing the House — where strong bipartisan support for backing Ukraine’s war effort continues — or going anywhere in the Senate. But the far right’s insistence on casting votes on the matter anyway has further imperiled the defense legislation and transformed what is ordinarily a broadly supported measure that provides the annual pay raise to U.S. military personnel and sets Pentagon policy into a partisan battleground that has placed Republican divisions on display.
The House on Thursday was set to begin casting votes on some of the measures, after Republican leaders agreed in the wee hours to the demands of ultraconservative lawmakers who insisted on votes to scale back Ukraine aid and add social policy dictates.
Among the measures set to be considered is one that would end a $300 million program to train and equip Ukrainian soldiers that has been in place for nearly a decade and another to prohibit the Biden administration from sending cluster munitions to Kyiv.
“Congress should not authorize another penny for Ukraine and push the Biden administration to pursue peace,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia and the author of the proposals, told the Rules Committee this week as she made the case for them. “Ukraine is not the 51st state of the United States of America.”
Republican leaders also acquiesced to the hard right’s demands for votes on a range of socially conservative restrictions for the military. Among them are a measure undoing a Pentagon policy providing time off and reimbursement to service members traveling out of state to obtain an abortion or other reproductive health services; another forbidding the military’s health plan from covering gender transition surgeries — which are not available to troops without a waiver — or gender-affirming hormone treatments; and a provision blocking the Pentagon from spending any money on diversity, equity and inclusion training.
Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania and the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, had said that votes to curtail support for Ukraine were every bit as important to the members of his group as votes to restrict abortion access and services for transgender soldiers. Asked whether some might seek to block the bill without such votes, he replied: “They might.”
Because Speaker Kevin McCarthy holds only a slim margin of control in the House, a rebellion by the right wing could stop the defense measure in its tracks, denying him the votes he would need from his side to advance it to final passage. Early Thursday, he bowed to their wishes, paving the way for votes on Ukraine that promise to put divisions in Congress over the war on display at a critical junction in Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russia, and just after Mr. Biden has appealed to allies this week during a NATO summit to remain united in support.
“We can see from what’s taken place at the NATO summit, the significance and importance of us all speaking with one voice and making sure that we’re giving the Ukrainians what they need to win this war,” Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview on Wednesday. “It will be absolutely the worst thing to do to have a show of division — that’s playing right into Putin’s hands.”
Some mainstream Republicans say they relish the fight, seeing it as a potential opportunity to put the rebellious right wing of the party in its place.
“It’s going to fail big time,” Representative Mike D. Rogers, Republican of Alabama, said of the hard right’s bid to scrap American support for Ukraine. “So I hope they make it in order — I think you’ll see it go down overwhelmingly.”
The defense bill is the latest forum right-wing lawmakers have been using to challenge Mr. McCarthy’s leadership. Their protest, which began during January’s protracted speaker fight, resumed last month, when 11 far-right lawmakers brought the House floor to a standstill to express their fury at Mr. McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal with President Biden. They have threatened similar tactics in the future if he fails to bow to their demands.
Mr. McCarthy had been bracing for a difficult fight over Ukraine funding in the coming months, when the Biden administration is expected to request billions of dollars to keep Kyiv’s war machine humming.
Hoping to head off a revolt from the right wing, the speaker publicly declared he was opposed to any additional funding for Ukraine beyond the limits of the debt ceiling deal, despite having publicly proclaimed just weeks before: “I vote for aid for Ukraine, I support aid for Ukraine.”
But with the defense bill, the ultraconservative faction has forced the issue now.
Ukraine assistance is a tricky topic for the G.O.P. politically. Both of the front-runners for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have said they would like to limit U.S. assistance to Ukraine. According to a recent poll by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, while more than 70 percent of Republicans want to see Ukraine win the war, only half support sending U.S. military aid to help the country defeat Russia.
Last year, 57 House Republicans voted against a measure to provide $40 billion in military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. Congress approved a total of more than $113 billion in Ukraine aid last year.
House G.O.P. leaders expressed confidence on Wednesday that they could defeat any proposal to strip funding for Ukraine, thus preserving the integrity of the underlying defense bill. But they worried aloud about the social policy measures, which they noted would alienate Democrats whose votes would be needed to pass the bill.
But the proposals on abortion, race and gender could be more difficult, they warned.
“Those I think are actually dicier,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the Rules Committee. “You’re not going to get any Democrats that way.”