Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said on Sunday that he cannot ensure that the U.S. would keep helping Ukraine if former President Trump wins reelection in November.
When asked on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” if he can assure that the U.S. will stick with Ukraine if Trump returns to the White House, Sullivan said, “Well, listen, I can’t guarantee anything, but it’s actually good that…President [Volodymyr] Zelensky mentioned Afghanistan because…this gets lost too much.”
Sullivan was referring to Zelensky’s comments earlier on Sunday to NBC News, in which he said the House’s recently passed funding for Ukraine will send a signal that “it will not be a second Afghanistan and the United States will stay with Ukraine.”
“I think we got to look at how we got to the situation of Ukraine. I believe strongly that the weakness coming out of the Biden White House, they cut defense spending, you know…every year in terms of the President’s budget,” Sullivan continued. “Their energy policies exude weakness and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan emboldened Putin to undertake the invasion of Ukraine.”
The Senate is set to consider a huge foreign aid bill passed by the House over the weekend that will provide about $61 billion to Ukraine, along with other funds for Israel, and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. It also includes a package of other national security measures, including a potential ban on the TikTok app.
The bill came after months of alerts from the Biden administration that Ukraine will struggle against Russian forces without any extra aid approved by Congress. The aid was left in limbo for over a year due to sharp divisions among lawmakers.
Before the weekend vote, Trump questioned why European nations were not offering more aid for Ukraine, without directly commenting on the House package.
A tracker by the Institute for the World Economy indicates that total European aid for Ukraine has actually surpassed U.S. assistance, though much of that is in the form of financial and humanitarian aid. The U.S. has given significantly more military aid to Kyiv, according to the tracker.He has expressed doubts about the U.S. giving aid to Ukraine recently, arguing that support for the country is not a crucial American interest. During a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president,
suggested an openness to Republicans approving aid for Ukraine in the form of a loan. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said on Sunday that he cannot ensure that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine if former President Trump wins reelection in November. When asked on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” if he can assure that the U.S. will stick with Ukraine should Trump return to the White House, Sullivan said,…
