Mike Johnson won't approve new Ukraine funding under lame-duck Biden admin

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Wednesday that he’s “not planning” on approving President Joe Biden’s eleventh-hour flurry of spending for Ukraine. “I'm not planning to do that,” Johnson responded to a reporter’s question about approving Biden’s latest spending proposals for Ukraine. “There are developments by the hour in Ukraine.”

“I think, as we predicted, and as I said to all of you weeks before the election, if Donald Trump is elected, it will change that, the dynamic of the Russia war on Ukraine, and we're seeing that happen,” Johnson continued. “It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now. We have a newly elected president, and we're going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief's direction on that. I don't expect any Ukraine funding to come up."

Biden has envisioned a mass of spending for Ukraine in the last month. He asked Congress for $24 billion last week and on Monday it was revealed that the administration is set to send an additional $725 million in military assistance that could include more of the ATACMS long-range missiles that Ukraine is firing directly into Russia. The president also wants to forgive $4.7 billion in loans to Ukraine.

The Biden-Harris administration has repeatedly expressed its desire to “Trump proof” its Ukraine policy by creating a political consensus that Zelensky needs to continue to receive aid even after Trump becomes president. “President Biden will make the case that we do need ongoing resources for Ukraine beyond the end of his term,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” earlier this month, The New York Post noted.

The Biden-Harris regime has spent $64 billion on direct military assistance to Ukraine as of November. Last month, the administration made the controversial decision to approve the use of US missiles to strike targets inside Russia, provoking threats of retaliation from Russia. The outgoing administration also gave the nod to the deployment of anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine, weapons that the US continues to unearth around the world so that civilians are not injured or killed by them decades after they were placed in the ground.