Speaker Kevin McCarthy told President Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to pound sand and rejected a request by the Ukrainian president to speak to the American people in a joint session of Congress.
Kevin said: “Zelensky asked for a joint session. We just didn’t have time. He’s already given a joint session. So what we’re doing for Zelensky is exactly the same thing we did for the prime minister of UK, the prime minister of Italy.”
He said the message he would give to Zelensky is: “Sit down and walk through the questions. What is the plan for victory? Where are we currently on the field?
“The accountability issues that a lot of members have questions, just walk through that.”
According to Punchbowl News, funding for Zelensky is not guaranteed:
Senate GOP Ukraine skeptics emerged from the briefing even more determined to block future funding for the war effort.
“If there is a path toward something that can be called a victory here, I didn’t hear it,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said afterward. “I’m frankly tired of them actively misleading us about Ukraine.”
Hawley, among the GOP’s most vocal opponents of Ukraine aid, said the Biden administration briefers told senators that funding requests will continue even beyond the current $24 billion ask from the White House.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has traveled to Ukraine several times since the war began, took aim at Hawley’s assessment after the briefing.
Graham said Western allies have “matched” what the United States has done. Graham said he pressed the administration officials to seek enough Ukraine funding to last through the 2024 elections.
“If you were in that briefing and you came away believing that what we do in Ukraine doesn’t affect our national security interest in the world, you literally had your ears closed,” Graham said.
“Those who suggest that we should pull the plug on Ukraine — I will make sure, to my dying day, you own that decision.”
