As Ukraine’s TV comedian turned president, Volodymyr Zelensky – dressed in his vestigial Gap-like battle fatigue costume – arrives in Washington to not-so-much media fanfare, a concerted resistance faction has formed on Capitol Hill around the issue of issuing a blank cheque for Washington and NATO’s disastrous proxy war against Russian in Ukraine.
GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has shocked deep state bureaucrats by declining to host a formal House Forum for Zelensky. Instead, the Speaker has scheduled a private meeting with the Ukrainian president, but his refusal to arrange for rank-and-file lawmakers to hear from him directly – calling into question the open-ended continuing aid to the increasingly unpopular and corrupt regime in Kiev.
Get ready for the fireworks…
Zero Hedge reports…
Ukrainian President Volodoymr Zelensky is in Washington Thursday, where he’s expected at the White House to meet with President Joe Biden. Importantly, he’s also soon due to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, at a moment some GOP dissenters are holding up Pentagon funding and the potential for more Ukraine aid.
McCarthy vowed Tuesday to confront and intensely question Zelensky when the two meet. He posed going into the meeting, “Is Zelensky elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think I have to commit anything and I think I have questions for him.”
“Where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent? What is the plan for victory? I think that’s what the American public wants to know,” McCarthy added.
Central here is the Biden and Democrat-backed effort to include an additional $24 billion in Ukraine funding. Zelensky will seek to rally Congressional Republicans behind it.
At the start of the week Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “And with no Ukraine funding, the proposal is an insult to Ukraine and a gift to Putin. I cannot think of a worse welcome for Zelensky who visits us this week than this House proposal, which ignores Ukraine entirely.”
Toward this end of unquestionably pushing through the billions in US taxpayer dollars for Ukraine, John Fetterman says he’s willing to leave the hoodie at home and finally wear a suit on the Senate floor if “jagoffs” in the House decide to “fully support Ukraine”.
If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) September 20, 2023
The Washington Post and others are meanwhile reporting on a new letter that GOP Congressional leaders sent the White House, which vows to reject the $24 billion in Ukraine aid…
In a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal, the group says it is rejecting President Biden’s request for an additional $24 billion in security, economic and humanitarian aid. The lawmakers said they have concerns about the more than $100 billion in funding Congress already has approved, complained that the administration supports an “open-ended commitment” to Ukraine and criticized what they say is an unclear strategy. It is signed by 23 House members and six senators, led by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), and addressed to Shalanda Young, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Among the other signatories is Sen. Rand Paul, who has said, “It’s as if no one has noticed that we have no extra money to send to Ukraine.” He further pointed out that “Our deficit this year will exceed $1.5 trillion. Borrowing money from China to send it to Ukraine makes no sense.”
And Sen. Vance on the proposed spending bill said: “Now you hear people talking about the long haul. Well, is the long haul a year, $100 billion, in 10 years, a trillion dollars?”
Among the key questions that the GOP letter to the White House poses are: “How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan?” the Republicans wrote. “It would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant this request without knowing the answers to these questions.”
Zelensky arrives at Capitol Hill in fatigues. pic.twitter.com/8vCBfqXs5h
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) September 21, 2023
So a fight is brewing with the hawks, of which there are plenty in the GOP. But overall, the timing couldn’t be worse for Zelensky, for the many reasons we covered here.
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