[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 62 (Thursday, April 7, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2071-S2073]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I just want to make some comments regarding 
what the junior Senator from Missouri was just talking about on the 
floor, and I know that my colleague from Hawaii was providing 
commentary as well.
  It is hard to comprehend how any Member of Congress, House or Senate, 
could come to the floor and make the criticism of the Biden 
administration regarding its Ukraine policy, especially with regard to 
the military assistance provided by this administration, and that same 
Senator, along with a long list of Republican Senators, voted against 
all the money for Ukraine just a couple weeks ago, $13.6 billion.
  But, unfortunately, it is entirely consistent with what those same 31 
Senators have been doing for the last couple of weeks. They voted 
against all the money in March, and then they criticize President 
Biden. In fact, the day of President Zelenskyy's speech to the 
Congress--that inspiring speech--that so many of us were moved by, 
people in both parties, both Houses, all across the country, in fact, 
across the world were moved by what he said and, frankly, challenged by 
what he said.
  We have to do more, even in my judgment, than the $13.6 billion. But 
as the junior Senator from Missouri should know--I hope he knows this--
since the beginning of this administration, just on the military 
assistance, we have provided $2.6 billion. So more than $2.5 billion 
dollars just in military assistance, but the bulk of that is in that 
spending bill that we passed a couple of weeks ago that has the $13.6 
billion.
  Here is what the Washington Post says, and I will read the headline 
and the date, and then ask consent to enter it into the Record. Here is 
the headline:

       More than two dozen Senate Republicans demand Biden do more 
     for Ukraine after voting against $13.6 billion for Ukraine.

  Mr. President, dated March 17, 2022, a story by Mariana Alfaro and 
Eugene Scott, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in 
the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                            [March 17, 2022]

More Than Two Dozen Senate Republicans Demand Biden Do More for Ukraine 
             After Voting Against $13.6 Billion for Ukraine

                  (By Mariana Alfaro and Eugene Scott)


Thirty-one Senate Republicans voted last week against the $1.5 trillion 
 spending bill to fund the government, increase U.S. defense spending 
and provide humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine. In recent 
       days, many of them have clamored for more weapons and aid.

       More than two dozen Senate Republicans are demanding that 
     President Biden do more to aid war-torn Ukraine and arm its 
     forces against Russia's brutal assault, after voting last 
     week against $13.6 billion in military and humanitarian 
     assistance for Ukraine. Consider Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), 
     who heard Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's emotional 
     plea in a virtual address to Congress on Wednesday for more 
     weapons and a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
       ``President Biden needs to make a decision TODAY: either 
     give Ukraine access to the planes and antiaircraft defense 
     systems it needs to defend itself, or enforce a no-fly zone 
     to close Ukrainian skies to Russian attacks,'' Scott said in 
     a statement. ``If President Biden does not do this NOW, 
     President Biden will show himself to be absolutely heartless 
     and ignorant of the deaths of innocent Ukrainian children and 
     families.''
       Last week, Scott was one of 31 Republicans to vote against 
     a sweeping, $1.5 trillion spending bill to fund government 
     agencies and departments through the remainder of the fiscal 
     year, a bill that also included $13.6 billion in assistance 
     for Ukraine. Biden signed the bill into law Tuesday, saying 
     the United States was ``moving urgently to further augment 
     the support to the brave people of Ukraine as they defend 
     their country.''
       After casting a ``no'' vote, Scott assailed the overall 
     spending bill as wasteful, arguing that it was filled with 
     lawmakers' pet projects. ``It makes my blood boil,'' Scott 
     said last week.
       Democrats quickly condemned what they saw as glaring 
     hypocrisy among the Republicans who voted against the aid but 
     were quick to criticize Biden as a commander in chief leading 
     from behind in addressing Ukraine's needs. ``We should send 
     more lethal aid to Ukraine which I voted against last week' 
     is making my brain melt,'' tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz (D-
     Hawaii).
       The Russian invasion of Ukraine has highlighted divisions 
     in the Republican Party on U.S. involvement overseas and the 
     standing of the NATO alliance. For decades, during the 
     presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. 
     Bush, the GOP embraced a hawkish view, with robust military 
     spending and certainty about coming to the aid of allies.
       President Donald Trump's ``America First'' outlook and 
     efforts to undermine NATO, including questioning why the 
     military alliance even existed, secured a foothold in the 
     GOP, reflected in the response of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene 
     (R-Ga.) to Ukraine. In a video Wednesday, Greene blamed both 
     Russia and Ukraine, and warned against U.S. intervention. 
     Biden has said repeatedly that he would not send U.S. troops 
     to fight.
       Potential 2024 presidential candidates such as Scott have 
     been highly critical of Biden, who also announced Wednesday 
     that the Pentagon was sending nearly $1 billion in military 
     equipment to Ukraine, including 800 Stinger antiaircraft 
     systems, 100 drones, 25,000 helmets and more than 20 million 
     rounds of small-arms ammunition and grenade launcher and 
     mortar rounds.
       In early February, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), another 
     possible White House candidate, sent a letter to Secretary of 
     State Antony Blinken suggesting that the United States would 
     be worse off if Ukraine were admitted to NATO, the military 
     alliance of 30 mainly Western countries--including the United 
     States--bound by a mutual defense treaty, and argued that the 
     United States should instead focus on countering China.
       Hawley, who voted against the spending bill with billions 
     for Ukraine, said Wednesday that Biden needs to ``step up'' 
     and send MiG jet fighters and other weapons to Ukraine, 
     accusing the administration of ``dragging its feet.''
       The Pentagon has rebuffed Poland's offer to send MiG 
     fighter jets to Ukraine amid fears of further escalation 
     involving a NATO country.
       In a statement Thursday, Hawley said, ``Aid for Ukraine 
     should not be held hostage to the Democrats' pet projects and 
     I did not support the massive $1.5 trillion omnibus spending 
     bill stuffed with billions in earmarks.''
       Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a member of the Senate 
     Intelligence Committee who also voted against the spending 
     bill, told MSNBC on Thursday that the United States ``can do 
     more'' for Ukraine.
       ``There were all sorts of particular ways where the 
     administration yesterday said a lot of the right things, but 
     just because the pen was in President Biden's hand yesterday 
     doesn't mean that weapons are in Zelensky's hands today. And 
     at every point we're too slow, and it feels like a huge part 
     of the administration's audience is internal lawyers, and 
     they do these offensive and defensive legal-hairsplitting 
     arguments,'' Sasse said.
       On the Senate floor Thursday, Sasse argued that the 
     spending bill wasn't ``really about Ukrainian aid,'' but a 
     ``whole bunch of schlock.''
       ``Ukrainian aid was a little bit of sugar on the larger 
     medicine of a $1.5 trillion bill that nobody would actually 
     want to go home and to defend to the voters, and to the 
     taxpayers of America, as well thought out,'' he said.
       Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) countered that the only way to 
     deliver aid to Ukraine

[[Page S2072]]

     and massive legislation is through compromise.
       ``Inside every piece of legislation are elements that many 
     of us disagree with,'' Murphy said. ``Inside that budget that 
     you voted against are all sorts of things that I disagree 
     with. But in the end, in order to govern the country, you 
     have to be able to find a path to compromise.''
       Schatz, in an interview with The Washington Post after the 
     exchange between Sasse and Murphy, said the vote in favor of 
     the aid was an ``easy'' one.
       ``It's very simple: If you don't vote for the thing, you're 
     not for the thing,'' Schatz said. ``That is literally our 
     job, to decide whether we are for or against things as a 
     binary question.''
       ``So you don't get to say: `Even though I voted against 
     Ukraine aid, that I'm actually for it, and here's my 
     explanation,' '' Schatz added, arguing that Republicans were 
     trying to have it both ways by maintaining their fidelity to 
     Trump--who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin--and 
     become ``Zelensky fans'' at the same time.
       ``They voted to exonerate Trump for this specific reason, 
     which was to withhold aid from Zelensky, and here they are 
     again, opposing aid to Zelensky,'' Schatz said. ``So now 
     they're doing it twice. They're still acting as if they're 
     defenders of Western-style democracy.''
       The day before voting against the bill, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-
     Ark.), another possible presidential candidate, posted on 
     Twitter about the need to come to Ukraine's aid. ``Helping 
     Ukraine defend itself against a ruthless dictator is in our 
     best interest,'' he tweeted.
       Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) tweeted a clip declaring the 
     importance of assisting Ukraine. ``It's not much of a 
     deterrent when the assistance you provide comes after the 
     invasion,'' he wrote. ``We need to have President Zelensky's 
     back and expedite aid to Ukraine.''
       Hours later, Cramer voted against the spending bill. Sen. 
     John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) tweeted a clip the day he voted 
     against the bill of him speaking to the need to give Ukraine 
     more aircraft.
       ``The Ukrainian people and President Zelensky are fighting 
     well above their weight, but they need planes,'' he said on 
     Fox News. ``He made that very clear to us on the phone 
     Saturday.''
       ``Give the man his planes,'' Kennedy added.
       Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the GOP's 2012 presidential 
     nominee, was widely mocked when he called Russia the ``number 
     one geopolitical foe'' during a debate with President Barack 
     Obama, a remark that in hindsight seems prescient.
       Romney, like other Republicans, has pressed Biden to send 
     more aid to Ukraine. He also voted against the spending bill 
     with billions for the country. Romney said that while he 
     ``strongly'' supports providing aid to Ukrainians, he 
     ``ultimately could not support the rest of this bloated 
     spending bill for the aforementioned reasons.''
       ``Forcing us to swallow the bad to get the good is 
     concerning, unsustainable, and no way to govern over the long 
     term,'' he said.
       In a statement to The Post Thursday, Romney added that he 
     has ``and will strongly support aid for Ukraine'' and that he 
     ``called for a stand-alone bill to get a vote on Monday, four 
     days sooner than the omnibus did.''
       Romney and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are separately leading 
     an effort with 40 of their Senate GOP colleagues to urge 
     Biden to work with Poland and other NATO allies to expedite 
     the transfer of aircraft and air-defense systems to Ukraine. 
     Of those 40 Republicans, 25 voted against the aid package.
       While increasing domestic spending and keeping the 
     government open, the sweeping spending bill also increased 
     spending for the U.S. military by 5.6 percent, totaling $762 
     billion. The bill includes a 2.7 percent pay increase for all 
     active-duty troops. Several Republicans were critical of 
     Ukraine in 2017, when Trump began spreading a conspiracy 
     theory that it was Ukraine--and not Russia--that interfered 
     with the 2016 election. Two years later, Democrats accused 
     Trump of leveraging military assistance and an Oval Office 
     meeting with Zelensky in exchange for investigations of Biden 
     and his son Hunter Biden, and the debunked theory alleging 
     Ukrainian interference in the election.
       The House impeached Trump; the Senate acquitted him on 
     charges that he abused the powers of his office and 
     obstructed Congress. All the Senate Republicans except Romney 
     voted for acquittal.
       Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told The Post on Thursday that 
     Republican lawmakers arguing for more aid for Ukraine days 
     after voting against a bill to provide assistance is ``the 
     height of hypocrisy.''
       ``Some of them will find every way they can to criticize 
     Joe Biden,'' Hirono said. ``And I think it's more than ironic 
     that the president that they continue to support withheld aid 
     to Ukraine for political purposes.''
       As several of these Republicans who voted against the bill 
     criticized Biden, one Republican pointed to the disconnect.
       Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who voted for the bill, 
     advised his party to stop sending ``mixed messages'' and 
     lamented that the spending bill with nearly $14 billion for 
     Ukraine didn't pass the Senate 100-0, according to Politico.
       And on Thursday, Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, 
     tweeted that the was ``grateful'' to the United States, which 
     he described as Ukraine's ``reliable partner.'' ``[Biden] 
     does more for [Ukraine] than any of his predecessors,'' 
     Yermak tweeted.

  Mr. CASEY. Here is the subheadline:

       Thirty-one Senate Republicans voted last week against the 
     $1.5 trillion spending bill to fund the government, increase 
     U.S. defense spending and provide humanitarian and military 
     assistance to Ukraine. In recent days, many of them have 
     clamored for more weapons and aid.

  And it goes on from there, and I am not going to read all of it, 
obviously, but it chronicles the hypocrisy that we just heard here 
today and that we have heard for days now and weeks now, criticizing 
the President when they voted against all the money--so all the money 
from the $13.6 billion that will go to pay for the Javelin missiles 
that are taking out Russian tanks every day and have for weeks--every 
penny of that out of the $13.6. You could probably cut it in half in 
terms of what the military assistance will be.
  So let's say, for sake of argument, probably half of that, $6 or $7 
billion, but whatever the exact number is, that money is going to help 
pay for a lot more Javelin missiles that have been so effective. The 
Stinger systems that they have used, the antiaircraft systems, they are 
all going to be paid for. The ammunition and the body armor and all of 
the other assistance that we are providing is going to be made possible 
because most of the Senate--50 Democrats and just 19 Republicans, but 
we are grateful for their support--voted for the money.
  So if you have a criticism about the administration's policy, you are 
certainly entitled to criticize the administration, but I think you 
lose your right to criticize the administration on military assistance 
and what we are doing or not doing on military assistance when you just 
voted against all the money--all the money. And yet they do it over and 
over again, as if no one is watching.
  Well, I think the American people get it, and I think they know the 
difference between someone who can justifiably criticize any 
administration on foreign policy or defense policy or anything else. 
But I think you should admit on the record that you didn't vote for the 
money. Don't throw sand in the eyes of the people. Admit on the record 
that you didn't vote for the money, and then lodge your criticism. But, 
of course, he didn't do that and so many who voted the wrong way.
  Now, the Washington Post also notes in this article that, obviously, 
it was a spending bill that will allow us to fund the government. We 
could talk about that, whether you support funding the government. But 
here is a point that was made in the article that I think a lot of 
people may have missed: It is that this funding bill also paid for a 
pay increase for our troops.
  U.S. servicemembers got a pay increase in this bill, and yet you 
would never know that by listening to some of the folks who voted the 
wrong way on the bill. You would think that that wasn't part of this 
legislation.
  So I think a lot of Americans probably expect that when you are 
making an argument against an administration, you have the right to do 
that, but I think it would be a lot more truthful if you were clear 
about where you voted on the biggest Ukraine spending measure in recent 
history, likely not just the biggest ever for Ukraine but the biggest 
ever for a lot of countries that we help.
  So I hope that people across this Chamber and across the country will 
make note of that contradiction, because when you voted against those 
dollars for Ukraine, you were voting against not only the people of 
Ukraine and their ability to fight this war and obviously the soldiers 
in the field, but you were voting against that humanitarian support, as 
well, that will provide food and medical care and so much else.
  Now, I am in no way satisfied that we have done enough. We have got 
to do a lot more. We have got to provide, in my judgment, a river, an 
ever-rushing stream of weapons--as many weapons as it takes to defeat 
Vladimir Putin.
  So we are going to have more debates, and Senators will have more 
opportunities to vote the right way when it comes to supporting the 
people of Ukraine. But I think it would be better for the debate if 
folks would mention how they voted, that they voted against the Ukraine 
money, that they voted against the pay raise for the troops, and they 
voted against a lot of other provisions.

[[Page S2073]]

  But to come on to the Senate floor and to criticize the President on 
military assistance, that is the height of hypocrisy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. The majority leader is going to come to the floor, and 
I will yield the floor for him when he comes here, but I would like to 
yield the floor without losing the right to the floor.