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Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert made it clear Ukraine aid will hang over the House speaker race.
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The far-right Colorado congresswoman said it’s clear to her that no future speaker can support additional aid.
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Last week, conservatives forced leadership to remove Ukraine aid from a Pentagon funding bill.
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado is signaling that House conservatives will pressure a future speaker to cease further funding for Ukraine, confirming that the war could very much turn on how House Republicans move forward.
“For the first time, we saw that Ukraine funding alone does not have a majority of the majority’s support,” Boebert told Steve Bannon on Friday on his “War Room” show. “Any speaker has to recognize that and not allow more funding for Ukraine to come to the floor. We are absolutely tired of spending it.”
Boebert was pointing to a vote last week where $300 million to fund Ukraine passed thanks to House Democrats’ massive support. Of Republicans, 117 voted against the funding and 110 were in favor of it. House conservatives had narrowly forced GOP leadership to strip the $300 million from a much larger bill funding the Pentagon.
A growing number of Republicans are balking at the level of US support for Ukraine, or even demanding a stop to all aid — a push sharply at odds with the party’s large contingent of hawks. Support is much stronger among Senate Republicans; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for example, has called funding for Ukraine “the number one priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans.”
The White House and Congress have directed more than $75 billion to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank. A majority of the funding has gone to supporting defense needs.
The two current leading candidates for House speaker appear to be split on the subject. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise voted in favor of the $300 million. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who received Trump’s backing early Friday morning, voted against it. Jordan has since told reporters that he doesn’t support additional aid.
“We are not going to allow them to leverage our Southern border in Appropriations bills with more funding for Ukraine,” Boebert said. “This is something that many of my colleagues and I will lock arms and fight against to ensure that we are not sending more hard-earned tax dollars to Ukraine when our own country has a Southern border that is not secure.”
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