“I believe that in the midst of a recession we cannot sign a blank check for Ukraine. It’s not possible,” Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy told Punchbowl News.
A powerful Republican congressman said Tuesday that his party will not sign a “blank check” for Ukraine if it secures, as polls predict, a majority of seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 8.
The warning from Kevin McCarthy, the head of the GOP in that chamber of Congress, is the first indication of the difficulties that await the White House and Kyiv if the US Congress’s support for the financing of arms intended for Ukraine, so far given, is put under dispute.
“I believe that in the midst of a recession we cannot sign a blank check for Ukraine. It’s not possible,” Mr McCarthy told news website Punchbowl News.
If the Republicans actually secure a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, the Californian parliamentarian hopes to dethrone the Democrat Nancy Pelosi, to become the president of the body, in other words the third rank in the hierarchy of the American state, behind the president Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mr. McCarthy said he hoped voters would punish Democrats in November for what he said were sidelining America’s national priorities, such as immigration.
“Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and there won’t be a blank check,” he insisted, referring to officials in Mr. Biden’s administration.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, the White House has disbursed $17.6 billion in military aid to Kyiv with bipartisan approval in Congress, though some on the Republican right have protested.
For some analysts, Mr. McCarthy’s statements yesterday are a concession to the right wing of the Grand Old Party, whose support he needs to be elected speaker of the House of Representatives.
For others, the Republican is trying to score points in the ranks of the part of the party base that favors the trend known as isolationism in American foreign policy, as that portion may defect in November.
“The Democrats’ spending frenzy really never stops. “Biden must understand that we are the USA, not an automatic banking machine,” far-right lawmaker Lauren Bobert recently tweeted.
Almost all Republican lawmakers voted in September to decide the fate of a massive $12.3 billion public investment bill, which included $3 billion in aid to Ukraine (equipment, miscellaneous items, payment of Ukrainian military salaries ). However, the law passed with the support of all Democrats.
Democrats strongly criticized Mr. McCarthy’s statements yesterday.
“Cutting aid to Ukraine in the midst of Europe’s worst war since World War II shows just how incompetent McCarthy will be as Speaker of the House,” said Ben Rhodes, a former adviser to Barack Obama, on Twitter. Obama on foreign policy issues.
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