House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) made it clear on Wednesday that he and the GOP-controlled House are ready to start delivering on the mandate given to President-elect Trump and the Republican Party by voters on Nov. 5. Johnson stated that no additional monetary aid should be provided to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration. He emphasized that the decision to allocate further aid to Ukraine should rest with Trump once he assumes office in January.
“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 Russian war on Ukraine, and we’re seeing that happen,” the Louisiana leader of the House said during a House Republican leadership press conference. He stated that Trump’s electoral victory will alter the dynamics of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “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,” Johnson continued.
The Biden administration has requested $8 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, which includes providing military equipment, funding for training its armed forces, and other support. An additional $16 billion was proposed for the Department of Defense to supply Ukraine with more resources. In September, President-elect Donald Trump stated that he would work to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict as president-elect, even before officially taking office. He said:
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. There wouldn’t have been an October 7th, there wouldn’t have been Russia attacking Ukraine, there wouldn’t be inflation, all this inflation which has hurt people so badly.
You wouldn’t have had that horrible type of withdrawal — we were getting out of Afghanistan, but with dignity and strength — that was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. And frankly Russia would have never gone into Ukraine if it weren’t for that. They looked at that and they said, “This country is no longer run by Trump. This country is run by stupid people.”