Secretary Lloyd Austin appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriations Tuesday where he told lawmakers that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "was not" exaggerating when he said that without the financial support of the United States and NATO, Ukraine will lose its war against Russia.
The Tuesday morning hearing, which also featured Secretary of State Antony Blinken, centered around President Joe Biden's nearly $106 billion ask for security assistance to aid Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan while also funding security at the U.S.-Mexico border and providing general humanitarian aid.
The comments come in wake of House Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to move forward on a bill to provide over $14 billion aid for only Israel, funded by cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that were designated to the tax-collecting agency in Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act.
Blinken said allowing Russia to conquer Ukraine "would do both terrible harm to our values but also to our core interests" by allowing an aggressor to emerge victorious over a democratic country. Republicans hear Blinken and Austin's sentiments, and many senators, including GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, want a comprehensive package. Others, however, back the Speaker's decision, stressing their desire to see Israel and Ukraine handled separately.
"Whatever someone in [Austin's] position is gonna say, I'm gonna pay attention to it, but I think it begs the question of what is the long-term plan," Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana, who voted against the May 2022 aid package for Ukraine, told Newsweek. "I think he could make his case a lot easier if he would actually come up with a plan of how you'd sustainably pay for it, just like the House did."
"I'm with Ukraine 100 percent in terms of where they're at; Putin is an invader," Braun added. "I just think it's gonna go on for a long, long time until there's at least European co-leadership. We're doing more in their own backyard, and I think it begs that question too. That's why I want it separate [from Israel aid]."
European Union institutions have committed over $85 billion to Ukraine, according to a September analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations, with nearly $83 billion of that coming in the form of financial assistance and the remaining more than $2 billion being humanitarian assistance. In contrast, America has committed nearly $47 billion in military aid to Ukraine, over $26 billion in financial aid, and almost $4 billion in humanitarian assistance. America's sum exceeds that of any other nation.
Austin stressed that the aid request does not just further America's interest by supporting the needs of allies, but it also serves as an investment in America's defense industrial base. After sending its own supplies to allies, the request allows the U.S. to reinvest in its own stockpile, creating American jobs in the process.
Appropriations Vice Chair Susan Collins of Maine, the committee's top Republican, backs the sentiment. She also backs McConnell's push to couple Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan aid together, saying, "we must recognize that our national security interests are being aggressively challenged by all these authoritarian actors in an effort to dismantle the international order that we established following World War II."
Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who supports aiding both Ukraine and Israel, sees opposition to supporting America's allies as a fringe view, but acknowledges that it's one that has grown in recent years.
"The great majority of senators and members of the House support funding for Ukraine and Israel. There are small numbers on the wings of the respective parties that don't support one or the other, but they're not the majority," he told Newsweek. "I think social media and the dissemination of disinformation has stimulated various conspiracy theories and populist movements both here and abroad."
While an October poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 63 percent of U.S. adults support providing aid to Ukraine, among Republicans that number stands at 50 percent. And while 76 percent of Democratic voters believe supporting Israel is in America's interest, per an October poll by Quinnipiac University, some progressive groups have taken an outspoken stance against Israel's response to the Hamas attacks. During the Tuesday hearing, members of the leftist peace group Code Pink disrupted the proceeding, interrupting Blinken with shouts of "ceasefire now."
The Associated Press (AP) reported on October 30 that following the October 7 attack on Israel by the Iranian-backed organization Hamas that "a flood of videos and photos purporting to show the conflict have filled social media, making it difficult for onlookers from around the world to sort fact from fiction." Similarly, the AP reported in August that "Disinformation, misinformation and absent information all cloud civilians' understanding" of the situation in Ukraine.
Nonetheless, each party has core constituencies that hold firm beliefs about the two situations based on real grievances. Chris Tuttle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, explained to Newsweek that for the left, who oppose Israel, those grievances stem from views that the country has oppressed the Palestinian people by not taking adequate steps toward a two-state solution. For conservatives with hawkish views on the national debt, Tuttle said opposing Ukraine centers around a desire to see funds conserved and prioritized elsewhere.
While elected Democrats may not be close to withholding aid for Israel, the movement on the right to cease funding for Ukraine remains at large. Proponents of Ukraine, including Florida's Republican Senator Marco Rubio, have argued that U.S. aid for the war effort accounts for just three percent of America's total defense spending.
However, for opponents, like Missouri's Republican Senator Josh Hawley, such a figure does not change the fact that America has a limited amount of resources that he believes could be more effectively spent on other efforts, like further countering China in the Pacific.
"It doesn't change the facts on the ground," Hawley told Newsweek. "The Pacific is our principal theater. It is our pacing theater, and we are not where we need to be. We are nowhere where we need to be. The military balance there is deteriorating against us, against our favor."
"So, we can do more on Ukraine, or we can do what we need to do in the Pacific," he added, "and of course now we have Israel in the mix, and my view is Israel aid ought to get prioritized."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Alex J. Rouhandeh serves as Newsweek's congressional correspondent, reporting from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. Over his tenure with ... Read more
