"House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., indicated he’s not budging from his position on pairing Ukraine aid and border security reforms even after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday.
He also lambasted the White House, accusing the Biden administration of failing to provide a clear strategy on U.S. involvement with Ukraine.
"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," Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
"What the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight or clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed."
He added, "I have also been very clear from day one, that our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first."
Zelenskyy is in Washington, D.C., to persuade U.S. lawmakers to approve more aid for Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion, which has lasted nearly two years.
President Biden has requested about $61 billion for Kyiv’s war effort, but getting it through Congress has proved an uphill battle with Republicans increasingly skeptical of the continued aid to Ukraine.
Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have both made clear that Biden would have to compromise on border and asylum policies to get enough GOP support for his request to pass.
"In the last three months – October, November, December alone – we've had more illegal crossings at the border than in any entire year of the Obama administration. The American people see this. They feel it acutely," Johnson said Tuesday.
The White House has warned that Ukraine would soon lose the ability to fend off Russia on the battlefield if the U.S. did not replenish its flow of aid quickly.
Don't budge Mike! The American people want accountability and secure borders.
People think that being tough is all about saying exactly what you think all the time regardless of the target audience. Being tough is about actions, while the words you use is to make sure it blunts the impact of the action as much as possible and make it hard to derail it. Most parents learn this while raising their kids.
This is what Mike has been doing and the conservative commentators latch on to every word making a huge deal out of it.
What good is giving 10 billion to border security when dhs will just circumvent evrything… johnson is a fool to bargain… its called border wall or we shut this mother fucker down…
Agreed!
Fuck yes!
To "allow" Ukraine to win?
Terms are acceptable.
Lol....no one with common sense is listening.
Hanging tough? NOTHING has changed, the border is still WIDE OPEN and on top of that he failed to stop the illegal surveillance with FISA, he's not the fighter we need.
Probably not. He's a place holder and meant to slow down the uniparty agenda enough so that the swamp creatures can feel the pain. Plus allows for more exposure of the fact that the Whitehouse does not want to secure the border.
i want to see an accounting of every dollar they have already sent over there..
We all do, but it won’t happen. 🤬
Exactly. Since when is there no accounting when US dollars is sent overseas? The American taxpayer must account for every penny they earn and report it. But government doesn't have to account for where our money goes? Bullshit. And double bullshit on income tax too. Such a slave system.
I think Joe just wrote Zelensky a check…
$200 mil, which is a lot, but a drop in the bucket against $60b. I think trump spent $200 m on AF1 fuel and travel logistics over 4 years.