US House speaker comments on future of aid to Ukraine
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson is increasingly against additional funding for Kiev and hopes it won’t be necessary if Donald Trump wins the presidential election, Punchbowl News, a Washington-focused media outlet reported on Friday.
Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to prop up Ukraine in its ongoing military conflict with Russia. The latest tranche of $61 billion was held up for several months amid a battle between Johnson and the White House.
”I don’t have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it’s not necessary,” the Louisiana Republican told Punchbowl News. “If President Trump wins, I believe that he actually can bring that conflict to a close. I really do. I think he’ll call [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and tell him that this is enough.”
“I think everybody around the world is weary of this, and they want it to be resolved,” Johnson added. ”So whatever the terms are, I’m not sure, but I think if Kamala Harris is president, I don’t think it ends, and that’s a desperate and dangerous scenario.”
Last month, Johnson objected to Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, calling it “a clearly partisan campaign event” that amounted to “election interference.” He wrote a letter to Zelensky demanding the immediate firing of Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, for organizing the visit.
While Markarova does not appear to have been sacked, Zelensky subsequently arranged a meeting with Trump via her deputy.
Johnson became speaker last October, after a group of House Republicans ousted his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, ostensibly because he’d made a secret deal with the White House to send billions in additional aid to Ukraine.
The emergency funding bill ended up stuck in Congress for almost six months, before it was approved in both the Senate and the House without any Republican priorities included. When he put the matter to a vote in April, the same Republicans who’d pushed to have him elected triggered a motion to oust him – which he survived with votes from the Democrats.
