Republican Sens. J.D. Vance, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson, along with Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, criticized the rush to approve additional funding for Ukraine’s conflict with Russia.
They expressed concerns about the lack of accountability and oversight in the aid package, highlighting the potential negative impact on American interests and the futility of the war.
“The assumption, as of a day ago, was the thing would certainly pass,” Vance said.
“I still think that it’s likely to pass, but I think what we’ve done is two things today. We’ve sort of commandeered the floor of the Senate using various procedural mechanisms to try to delay the thing as much as possible,” he said. “I think it’s given time for the news media and others to sort of surface some of the important problems with the legislation. And also, I think, sort of gin up our House colleagues to prepare to stop this thing.
“It funds Ukraine to the tune of another $61 billion,” Vance added, noting that the bills fail to “meaningfully address the problems that we have within our own defense industrial base.”
“It does not actually articulate or force the articulation of a strategy for how to end the conflict to begin with. So you basically have a blank check — or a near blank check — for a strategy that’s completely gone off the rails,” he said.
“By voting yes and passing this bill now, it empowers drug cartels, it dissolves our borders, it spends insane amounts of money that we don’t have on the priorities of foreign countries all at the same time,” Lee said.
“These are not choir boys,” he said. “These are not Boy Scouts. These are not Girl Scouts. These are people who have really set world records for corruption. It’s an art form over there.”
“The basic argument is that we have to rush resources to Ukraine immediately, or they’re liable to fall to Russian aggression,” Vance said. “And it’s all basically an argument made under the gun that unless you approve this appropriation of resources and weapons, then you will allow Russia to win. So it’s a kind of moral blackmail.”
“They can’t admit that this isn’t going well because if they admitted that, it would cause too much psychological harm, and they’d have to cut bait.”
Ukraine is “losing people every day,” Johnson said. “And if you’re going to spend lives, it must be for a purpose.”
Musk emphasized the unwinnable nature of the conflict and the risks associated with continued funding.
“There is no way in hell that Putin is going to lose. If he would back off, he would be assassinated. And for those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about: Who is the person that could take out Putin?” Musk said.
“And is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not. They’re probably gonna be even harder, even more hardcore than Putin if they took him out.”
The senators called for opposition to the aid package, citing the need to address American border security first and the potential political consequences for senators supporting the unpopular bill.
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