The newly elected speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, reportedly won over the final votes required to secure the post by promising conservative House Republicans that he will help pass a bill to limit future financial and military aid to Ukraine, which is fighting a war against Russia.
McCarthy, a California Republican, made the Ukraine compromise to win over obstinate lawmakers who had opposed his election as speaker, Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper reported on Saturday.
McCarthy was elected the House on Saturday after Republicans won back control of the House in November’s midterm elections.
It took five days and 15 rounds of voting for McCarthy to win the job, despite his party having a majority in the House.
Republican Representative Matt Gaetz led a group of about 20 representatives in opposing McCarthy’s election, at one point nominating former President Donald Trump for the job.
After McCarthy failed to win enough support from fellow Republicans in the first three rounds of voting on Tuesday, Gaetz said, “Today the House didn’t organize. Biggest loser: [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky. Biggest winner: US Taxpayers.”
Gaetz had opposed previous aid requests for Ukraine, including a $45-billion package approved last month, saying, “Hemorrhaging billions in taxpayer dollars for Ukraine while our country is in crisis is the definition of America last.”
The US Congress has allocated a whopping total of $100 billion in funding for Kiev since Russia began its military campaign in Ukraine in late February, according to the report.
American journalist and political commentator Don Debar has denounced the congressional approval of billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine, saying that the money is "stolen from the American people."
Since Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, the US has been flooding Ukraine with weapons and ammunition at a rate unprecedented since World War II.
Russia has repeatedly warned that supplying Kiev with more and more weapons will only exacerbate the conflict, which is now in its eleventh month.
Continuously flooding Ukraine with weapons "will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result," the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said last year.
Peskov insisted that the US was in reality engaged in the Ukraine conflict. “The US de facto has become deeply involved.”
McCarthy also reportedly agreed to congressional rule changes, limits on defense spending and the creation of a committee to investigate “weaponization” of the federal government.
On Saturday, Trump took credit of McCarthy‘s win. “The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House,” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“Thank you, I did our Country a big favor!”
McCarthy praised Trump while speaking to reporters after he secured the gavel, saying, “I don’t think anybody should doubt his influence. He was with me from the beginning.”
Source: Media
