Speaker Johnson Meets President Zelensky, Calls for Transparency: “It is Not the House’s Issue Right Now. The Issue is with the White House and the Senate” (VIDEO)

On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss ongoing support and strategies in the face of the continuing conflict in Ukraine.

Speaker Johnson made it clear that while the House stands with Ukraine, he requires a clear strategy and detailed oversight from the White House for future assistance.

“Just had a good meeting with President Zelensky. I reiterated to him that we stand with him and against Putin’s brutal invasion. The American people stand for freedom, and they’re on the right side of this fight. I have asked the White House since the day that I was handed the gavel as speaker for clarity,” Speaker Johnson said in a statement to the press.

Johnson emphasized the need for a clear plan to enable Ukraine to win and criticized the administration for requesting additional funding without sufficient oversight or strategy.

“We need a clear articulation of the strategy to allow Ukraine to win. And thus far, their responses have been insufficient. They have not provided us the clarity and the detail that we have requested over and over since literally 24 hours after I was handed the gavel as speaker of the House.”

“And so what the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed. I have also made very clear from day one that our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first.”

Speaker Johnson also linked national security spending to border security, deeming current conditions at the border as ‘catastrophic’ under the Biden regime. Citing last week’s record illegal crossings and an alarming number of terrorists apprehended, Johnson insisted this is linked directly to current policies.

“Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49 in this country. Fentanyl poisoning because it’s allowed over the border. We have human trafficking and all the other terrible things. In the last three months, October, November, December alone, we’ve had more illegal crossings at the border than in any entire year during the Obama administration.”

The Speaker called for a transformative approach to both the crisis in Ukraine and the situation at the U.S. border, pressing the Senate and the White House for action.

“We needed clarity on what we’re doing in Ukraine and how we’ll have proper oversight of the spending of precious taxpayer dollars in the American citizens. And we needed a transformative change at the border,” Johnson said.

“Thus far, we’ve gotten neither. The Senate has been MIA on this. The House passed HR two six months ago, more than six months ago. It’s been sitting and collecting dust on Chuck Schumer’s desk. I have told him personally, and I’ve told the national security advisor, the secretary of state for the period of defense, that these are our conditions because these are the conditions of the American people. And we are resolute on that.”

“It is not the House’s issue right now. The issue is with the White House and the Senate, and I implore them to do their job because the time is urgent and we do want to do the right thing here with that.”

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— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) December 12, 2023