Getting the Republican-majority Home of Representatives to approve further funding for Ukraine would require first securing the US border with Mexico, Speaker Mike Johnson informed the White Home on Tuesday.
The Louisiana Republican was responding to Monday’s public letter from Workplace of Administration and Finances (OMB) Director Shalanda Younger, who warned that the US was “out of cash—and practically out of time” when it comes to assist to Ukraine and Israel. Younger argued that reducing off US assist would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” and improve the “chance of Russian army victories.”
Johnson first addressed Israel, noting that the Home authorized the Israel Safety Supplemental Appropriations Act (HR 6126) on November 2, however that Democrats who management the Senate “voted to block consideration of the invoice.”
As for Ukraine, Johnson wrote, the Republican place has remained unchanged since his assembly with Younger and Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan on October 26, when he laid out “two important stipulations: safety at our border, and important solutions relating to the funds requested.”
Six days prior, President Joe Biden had introduced the proposal to bundle the funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and immigration and border enforcement in a $106 billion package deal, of which about $60 billion would go to Kiev.
Extra funding for Ukraine is “dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border safety legal guidelines,” Johnson wrote on Tuesday. The Home handed the Safe the Border Act of 2023 (HR 2), “greater than six months in the past,” he famous, however the Senate Democrats have “refused to behave” on it.
Pointing to over 6.5 million “unlawful alien encounters” alongside the southern US border since Biden took workplace, of which 294 concerned individuals “on the terrorist watchlist,” Johnson known as the state of affairs “an unconscionable and unsustainable disaster.”
Along with “insanity” on the border, Johnson famous that the White Home nonetheless owed Congress “a full accounting of how prior US army and humanitarian assist” to Ukraine was spent “and a proof of the president’s technique to make sure an accelerated path to victory.” He accused Biden of “failure to this point to current clearly outlined aims,” and to offer Kiev the weapons it wanted on time.
“Somewhat than participating with Congressional Republicans to debate logical reforms, the Biden Administration has ignored actuality, selecting as an alternative to interact in political posturing,” the Home speaker mentioned.
Talks on a border safety invoice within the Senate collapsed earlier within the day, as Democrats denounced the Republican proposal as “excessive,” claiming it might “finish asylum as we all know it.”
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