The shock of the departure of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker creates an uncertain landscape for President Biden’s top foreign policy goal.
President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shake hands during a meeting at the White House in September. White House officials are urgently strategizing on the best way to salvage U.S. aid to Ukraine, debating whether to push for a larger funding package or seek a smaller one that may have a better chance of passing now that support for Kyiv in Congress has been thrown into doubt by House Republicans’ ouster of their leader this week.The removal of Rep.
White House officials say that for now they have enough funding authority to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield needs, but it is not clear how long that will last. Given the unpredictability in the House, the administration is no longer pursuing the $24 billion supplemental funding request it initially wanted to include into a short-term government funding deal, one of the senior officials said.
“The goal should be to pass enough military aid to cover all of 2024,” said Kurt Volker, who served as the State Department’s special envoy for Ukraine under President Donald Trump. “Twenty-four billion is simply not enough to cover next year, and it is in neither party’s interest to tee up a situation for additional votes during the election campaign.”
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky left Washington last month, he was more visibly anxious than he had been in previous meetings with Biden about the future of U.S. support, according to a senior administration official familiar with the meeting who requested anonymity to describe private interactions.
sending additional arms and supplies to the Ukrainians, but the public is more divided over whether the investment has been worthwhile.in August, which found that 55 percent say Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine, while 45 percent support additional aid.
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