House Speaker McCarthy and Minority Leader Jeffries Create Bipartisan Task Force to Support Ukraine in War with Russia

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have agreed to create a bipartisan task force to establish a process to remove members from committees, according to aides for the two lawmakers. Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has been offered the position of chair, while Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas have also been asked to serve on the task force.

The task force was proposed by McCarthy after the fallout from his decision to call for a vote of the full House that ultimately removed Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from the Foreign Affairs Committee. McCarthy has already begun the process of reaching out to members to join the committee and Jeffries will also offer up a list of Democrats to participate.

The task force comes at a time when the issue of support for Ukraine has become a major point of contention between Republicans. On one side are those who advocate for a halt to U.S. assistance or, at least, an audit of that which has already been given. On the other side are the MAGA faithful, a coalition of self-described America Firsters who support continued assistance to Ukraine.

Ukraine has been engaged in a war with Russia for the past year, and has managed to retake around half of the territory that it lost in the first weeks of the war. The task force created by McCarthy and Jeffries will be an important step in ensuring that the U.S. continues to provide support to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.