During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) stated that House Republicans will find cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for money sent to Israel or Ukraine and that in order to get further funding for Ukraine without greater accountability for the money and a clear strategic plan from the White House.
Host Sean Hannity asked, [relevant exchange begins around 16:00] “Already, Joe Biden has given $76.8 billion to Ukraine. He wants $61 billion more. He wants 14 billion to go to Israel. And I think he — and then he wants to put money on the border, probably to satisfy conservatives in the House and get their support on Ukraine, for example, which seems to be his top priority. A big disparity in the amount of money. I have some criticisms about the issue of Ukraine. Number one, if you’re going to fight a war, you should fight it to win it. I thought the president made a horrible mistake by denying MiGs that were offered by Poland. I think the president made a horrible mistake trying to put handcuffs on the Ukrainian Army, led by Zelensky, on the issue of how they will fight and what weapons they can and cannot use like cluster bombs. And I don’t like the fact that Europe doesn’t pay their fair share. So, they’ve got 78 billion, he wants another 61 billion. How will you deal with the issues that — he wants to tie all of these issues together, which now gets into the budgetary process. Will you go issue by issue?”
Johnson responded, “I told the staff at the White House today that our consensus among House Republicans is we need to bifurcate those issues. I agree with your assessment in Ukraine, and that’s why the American people are demanding some real accountability for the use of those dollars. Now, we can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine, because I don’t believe it would stop there and it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan. We have these concerns. We’re not going to abandon them. But we have a responsibility, a stewardship responsibility over the precious treasure of the American people, and we have to make sure that the White House is providing the people with some accountability for the dollars and we want to know what the objective there is, what is the endgame in Ukraine? The White House has not provided that. I was at the White House for a couple of hours today and I told the staff there that this is where we are. This is where the House Republicans are.”
Johnson added, “We’ve got a group of our colleagues here in the House, led by Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA)…and some of our veterans have gotten together, Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s (R-TX) involved in this and others, they came up with a document that presents twelve critical questions for the White House to answer as a condition of our supplying the additional support. … I delivered that myself.”
He further stated, “Israel is a separate matter. We’re going to bring forward a standalone Israel funding measure, over $14 billion. … Israel’s requested a little less than that actually, the White House did, by way of Israel, and 14.5 billion specifically is what we’re looking at. It’s a very specific number tied to very specific measures. But here’s the important thing that distinguishes House Republicans from the other team: We’re going to find pay-fors in the budget. We’re not just printing money to send it overseas, we’re going to find the cuts elsewhere to do that.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
