Ukraine aid is happening. Slava America! Slava Ukraini!
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday floated a proposal that would tie aid to Ukraine to border security reform.
www.breitbart.com
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) floated a proposal Monday that would include aid to Ukraine and border security reform, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hopes to have a vote on a bill tying Ukraine and the border to aid for Israel as soon as next week.
Negotiations around foreign aid continue to unfold on Capitol Hill as bipartisan support for Israel is abundant, but support for a Ukraine package is thin among conservative Republicans. However, Johnson, who
oversawthe advancement of a standalone Israel aid bill with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in early November, indicated to reporters he was open to negotiations around a Ukraine bill that would also address problems at the southern border.
Speaking at a press conference in Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Florida on Monday, which was
captured by WFLA, Johnson told reporters that “negotiations are going on in earnest” with his counterparts in the Senate and that Israel and Ukraine are both priorities:
Listen, Israel is a top priority for the United States, and supporting our ally there is critical. It’s one of the first things we did. In fact, we passed the bipartisan Israel support package out of the House a while ago, right – not long after I took the gavel about a month ago. It’s been sitting in the Senate on Chuck Schumer’s desk, and so we are encouraging him to get that done. Ukraine is another priority.
Johnson added, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe, and we understand the necessity of assisting there.”
“What we’ve said is that if there is to be additional assistance to Ukraine, which most members of Congress believe is important, we have to also work in changing our own border policy, and so there’s been a lot of thoughtful negotiation ongoing with that. I think most of our Senate colleagues recognize that those two things need to move together because we owe that to the American people.”