Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) defended President Biden’s decision to include aid for Ukraine and Israel together in one budget request after some other Republicans criticized the bundling of the aid.
McConnell’s comments came during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation set to air on Sunday. Host Margaret Brennan asked whether it was possible to pass aid to Ukraine without it being tied to Israel. The prospect of continuing to send aid to Ukraine, which has already received $133 billion in military and economic assistance from the U.S., has been a source of tension in the Republican Party over the last several months. Some have advocated focusing on domestic issues, while others insist it is integral to U.S. interests to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.
“I just think that’s a mistake,” McConnell said. “I mean, I know there are some Republicans in the Senate, and maybe more in the House, saying Ukraine is somehow different. I view it as all interconnected.”
McConnell went on to defend the idea of approving more aid for Ukraine, noting much of the aid is being spent in the U.S. in increasing the production of the weapons.
“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it’s wonderful that they’re defending themselves — and also the notion that the Europeans are not doing enough,” he said.
Some Republicans have been skeptical of Biden’s proposed package, pushing back against the idea of tying Israel’s aid to assistance for Ukraine.
“There is an immediate responsibility on Congress to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself, and to hold that aid hostage by linking it with a myriad of other issues — including bailout for sanctuary cities and more money for Ukraine — is irresponsible,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) said on Thursday.
“These separate funding requests should be considered as such,” she added.
McConnell, for his part, said he and Biden are “generally in the same place” on funding for Ukraine and Israel, but said the two differ on domestic issues.
Last week, Biden sent an urgent budget request to Congress proposing $60 billion for Ukraine and replenishing U.S. stockpiles, $14 billion for Israel, $10 billion for humanitarian efforts, $14 billion for the border and $7 billion for the Indo-Pacific region.
One day before Biden made a rare primetime speech from the Oval Office making the case for the aid to Israel and Ukraine, Biden announced that he would provide $100 million in humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. He did not say how his administration would prevent the funds and supplies from falling into the hands of Hamas terrorists.
McConnell said during the interview airing Thursday that there are “genuine humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza who are not Hamas, who’ve been thrown under the bus by what Hamas did. Innocent people.”
“But we want to be careful about how the money is spent, be sure it actually gets where it’s supposed to get,” he said.