Republican Mike Johnson is opposed to a $24 billion request from the White House
The US House of Representatives will not consider President Joe Biden’s request to include $24 billion in additional aid to Ukraine in a continuing government funding bill, Speaker Mike Johnson has said.
In the absence of a formal budget, the US government has been funded through “continuing resolutions” that Congress needs to approve periodically. The White House has requested the $24 billion as part of the last such piece of legislation the House would need to adopt before adjourning for Christmas holidays.
“I’m not planning to that,” Johnson said on Wednesday, at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now.”
The Louisiana Republican reminded reporters that he had predicted Donald Trump’s election would change the dynamics of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and make further US funding unnecessary, adding that this is precisely what’s been happening in recent weeks.
“We have a newly-elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that,” Johnson said. “So I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.”
Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to prop up Ukraine in its ongoing military conflict with Russia. The latest batch of funding, amounting to $61 billion, was held up for several months amid a battle between Johnson and the White House.
The previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last October because a group of Republicans was outraged he had secretly negotiated with Democrats to get the Ukraine funding approved. The funding ended up stuck in Congress for almost six months, before it was approved in both the Senate and the House in April, with no concessions to the GOP.
