President Joe Biden plans to stress the need for Congress to approve additional funding for Ukraine during a meeting at the White House with bipartisan leaders Wednesday afternoon as the deadline for funding the government nears.
Biden’s warning will, in part, lay out the potential setbacks that Ukraine could suffer on the battlefield in its ongoing fight against Russia without additional US aid, White House sources told CNN.
When he meets with congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Biden plans to walk through the impact that US aid has had on Ukraine’s battle against Russia over the last two years and warn about the “cost of inaction” as Russia continues airstrikes and counter-offensive, one of the sources said.
The White House has repeatedly said that the administration has exhausted its presidential drawdown authority funding, and stressed how crucial new funding is for Ukraine’s continued defense.
“Our last security assistance package was authorized on the 27th of December,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday. “We meant it when we said it at the time, that that was the last one for which we had replenishment authority.”
And while White House officials fully expect border policies – negotiations over which have complicated negotiations on the supplemental package – to come up in Wednesday’s meeting, sources said the plan heading into the gathering is for the president to try to stay largely focused on Ukraine.
Hours before the planned White House meeting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Biden for not recognizing the flood of migrants at the southern border as a crisis.
“Over the weekend, President Biden once again refused to describe the situation at the southern border as a crisis. Apparently, according to the…
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