OAN Staff Blake Wolf
3:55 PM – Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected passing an additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, explaining that he would instead wait for incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s decision on the matter.
The request came after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget requested additional Ukrainian aid from Congress, which reportedly included $8 billion in weapons purchases and an extra $16 billion to repair and replace U.S. military equipment that was damaged in the war.
“As we predicted and as I said to all of you, weeks before the election, if Donald Trump is elected it will change the dynamic of the Russia war on Ukraine, and we’re seeing that happen,” Johnson stated.
“So, it is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now, we have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction on all that so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” he continued.
The White House’s latest request aimed to provide additional aid to Ukraine through 2026 in preparation for the incoming Trump administration, which seeks to put an end to the war through diplomatic means.
“I want to get Russia to settle up with Ukraine and stop this – millions of people being killed, far greater than the number you read about. But I want to get that done before I even take office, I want to get that done as president-elect, because it has to be solved – too many people dying, too many cities are just in rubble right now, you look at the cultures just being destroyed. We’ve got to get that done, and I’ll get it done,” Trump stated.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims that “the hot stage of the war” could end if Ukraine was admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
However, Americans who have expressed concern regarding the United States running out of funds have argued that aiding the Russia-Ukraine war is futile for the U.S. as a whole, and some have accused President Zelenskyy of carelessly sacrificing his own men in order to join NATO and take control of Crimea, which Russia has already maintained will never be taken from them.
“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do, fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” Zelenskyy stated.
Trump campaigned on ending the Ukraine war, and he likely plans on doing so through negotiation as his special envoy to the conflict, Keith Kellog, has proposed withholding aid to Ukraine if its leaders do not engage in diplomatic negotiations rather than violence.
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