Reports indicate growing issues in Ukraine in connection to delays in additional U.S. assistance for the country forced by Republican hesitation towards continuing the aid already provided. Additional aid for Ukraine would be set up by a bipartisan deal also covering immigration and the border that recently emerged in the Senate, but Republicans are shirking from that too.
“People will die, today, because of the cynical game played by the American Republican party. Their irresponsibility is breathtaking,” journalist Anne Applebaum said online in response to details on evident advances inside Ukraine by the Russian military.
Some Republicans continue opposing the prospect basically of any additional U.S. aid to Ukraine, which has most prominently been in the form of weapons deliveries. “McConnell and Senate Rs rolled over, waived the white flag and sold out the American people with this Leftist “deal,”” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), known as a Trump ally, recently complained on X (formerly Twitter). He specifically cited the included help for Ukraine in his litany of complaints.
House GOP leadership has stated that they won’t even bring the Senate deal on immigration and that foreign aid to a vote.
There’s also been the idea of specifically pairing proposed aid to Ukraine with advancements in border policy, an area where Republicans have complained to high heaven, consistently lying about what’s actually happening there. (In no reasonable sense, for example, is there an “invasion” underway, though Republicans often use such language.) But they’re saying the border deal falls short in that area as well.
Separately, the Biden admin proposed $14 billion in funding specifically geared towards handling the border, which if implemented would expand hiring and the technology on hand combating fentanyl. But Republicans have largely rejected that too. In an interview lambasting the funding proposal, House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Biden should visit the southern border. When reminded that the president did so, Johnson changed course, calling the previous visit somehow without sufficient substance.
