Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) join Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. X space For more than an hour Monday, he denounced efforts to rush to raise tens of millions of dollars in additional funding for Ukraine’s stalled war against Russia.
The discussion came ahead of a key procedural vote on the foreign aid package scheduled for Monday night. A vote on closure to end debate on the bill would require 60 senators, paving the way for a likely Wednesday vote on final passage.
The three senators urged listeners to contact their representatives to advocate against the policy, which has grown increasingly unpopular as its contents were exposed.
“As of a day ago, the assumption was that this was definitely going to pass,” Vance said.
I think there’s still a good chance we’ll pass, but I think there are two things we did today. We’ve been kind of ransacking the Senate floor using various procedural mechanisms to slow things down as long as possible. I think the news media and others have been given time to surface some of the key issues with this bill. And I also want to galvanize my colleagues in the House of Commons to prepare to stop this.
“This bill would provide an additional $61 billion in funding to Ukraine,” Vance explained, adding that the bill “does not meaningfully address the problems we have within our nation’s defense industrial base.” Stated.
“It doesn’t really clarify or enforce a strategy on how to end the conflict in the first place. That is, it’s basically a blank check, or close to a blank check, for completely insane strategies.” There is something.”
Senator J.D. Vance (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Mr. Lee accused his Republican colleagues of sending aid to Ukraine at the expense of the United States’ own interests.
“By voting yes and passing this bill now, we will be simultaneously empowering drug cartels, dismantling our borders, and spending extraordinary amounts of money that we don’t have on foreign priorities.” said.
Lee also criticized the bill for defeating an effort led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to increase accountability and oversight of aid to the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian government through the appointment of an inspector general. blamed the proposer.
“They’re not choir boys,” Lee said. “They’re not Boy Scouts. They’re not Girl Scouts. They’re the people who actually set world records for corruption. There’s an art form to it.”
Sen. Mike Lee (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Mr. Vance laid out the arguments of Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for rushing aid without further accountability.
“The basic argument is that the resources must be rushed to Ukraine immediately or they risk falling into Russian aggression,” he said. “And this is basically an argument made at gunpoint that if we don’t approve of this embezzlement of resources and weapons, we’re allowing Russia to win. So this is a kind of moral blackmail. .”
Those who support more aid to Ukraine cannot accept the reality that the war cannot be won for Ukraine, Vance continued. “They can’t admit that this isn’t working, because the psychological damage would be too great to admit that they would have to cut bait.”
Mr Johnson added that supporters argue that supporting this aid is in the explicit political interests of politicians, because “aid helps build our industrial base; Therefore, it is creating jobs in the state,” he added. And I call it corrupt justification. ”
Sen. Ron Johnson (Greg Nash/The Hill/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Musk pointed to Ukraine’s contributions to the war effort and echoed the three senators’ assessment that the war is ultimately unwinnable and that a peace deal is in their best interest.
Ukraine is “losing people every day,” he said. “And if you’re going to spend your life doing it, it has to be for a purpose.”
Mr. Musk continued:
President Putin cannot afford to lose. If he retreats, he will be assassinated. And those who want regime change in Russia should think: Who can defeat Putin? And is that person likely to be a pacifist? Probably not. If you take Putin out, they’ll probably become even tougher and more hardcore than Putin.
Elon Musk (Alain JOCARD/AFP)
Ramaswamy detailed further “unacceptable” risks to U.S. and global interests from continued “unlimited financing” of the fighting in Ukraine, which Americans consider “unacceptable.” He claimed thatCombined with the imprudent strengthening of the military alliance between Russia and China, this increases the risk of World War III by the greatest amount we have seen since World War II. ”
Vivek Ramaswamy (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, Getty Images)
Even if foreign aid passes the Senate, as expected, the House must act. If Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) brings the bill to the floor, it will likely face a revolt from members of the Republican conference.
On Monday night, after X-Space, Johnson appeared to pour cold water on the Senate’s policies, repeating his earlier comments that Congress should first tackle America’s border security.
“If we do not receive any changes to border policy from the House of Lords, the House of Commons will have to continue to work on these important issues on its own,” Johnson’s statement said. “America deserves better than what’s going on in the Senate.”
The timing before Monday night’s vote is critical, as it sends a message to wary Republican senators that a vote on the unpopular aid package will jeopardize their political position on a bill that won’t pass.
Some Democrats say the path forward for passing the bill in the House is uncertain, but they insist they will use all the legislative tools at their disposal to consider the bill.
Bradley Jay is Breitbart News’ Capitol Hill correspondent. Follow him on X/Twitter. @BradleyAJay.
