After meeting with President Zelenskyy, Speaker Mike Johnson issued a statement blaming Biden for the lack of Ukraine aid and then left without taking questions.
Video:
Mike Johnson blames the White House, ‘I have asked the White House since the day that I was handed the gavel as speaker for clarity. We need clear articulation of the strategy to allow Ukraine to win. Thus far, their responses have been insufficient,’ then flees reporters. pic.twitter.com/P2O6ne4Zqg
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) December 12, 2023
Johnson said:
I just had a good meeting with President Zelenskyy. I reiterated to him that we stand with him and against Putin’s brutal invasion, the American people stand for freedom and they’re on the right side of this fight. I have asked the White House since the day that I was handed the gavel as speaker for clarity, we need a clear articulation of the strategy to allow Ukraine to win. And thus far their responses have been insufficient.
They have not provided us the clarity and the detail that we have requested over and over since literally 24 hours after I was handed the gavel as Speaker of the House. And so what the Biden administration seems to be asking for billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed.
According to Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman:
SPEAKER JOHNSON just left his meeting with ZELENSKY. his position hasn’t changed.
His conditions to pass Ukraine aid are an immigration/border package and clarity on the administrations strategy on Ukraine.
Johnson took no questions from reporters.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 12, 2023
That sound you hear is the sound of goalposts being moved. Just this morning, Johnson and House Republicans claimed that the issue was border funding, Of course, they aren’t concerned enough about the border to cut their Christmas vacation short, but they claimed that the standoff was about the border.
Fast forward to lunchtime, and the problem is that Biden has given Republicans a strategy for winning the war. Keep in mind that Ukraine was invaded. Winning for the Ukrainians would be getting Russian forces out of their country.
Ukraine is not Biden’s war. so why does Biden have to come up with the strategy for Ukraine to win?
The answer is that Republicans don’t want to support Ukraine, and Mike Johnson was too big of a coward to face reporters and explain why.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
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