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Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California who became House speaker in January, made a public pledge on Monday to continue supporting Ukraine’s war effort, walking back earlier suggestions that the new House majority could limit US military and financial investment in Kyiv’s efforts to beat back the Russian invasion. .
Speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem shortly after delivering a speech to the Israeli Knesset, Mr. McCarthy pushed back forcefully after a reporter for the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti asked him about whether he could withdraw aid and weapons to Ukraine.
“I voted for aid to Ukraine, I support aid to Ukraine,” Mr. McCarthy said to the reporter, who had prefaced the question by stating, “We know that you do not support now unlimited and uncontrolled supplies of weapons and aid. to Ukraine.”
Mr McCarthy, who had earlier said there was no “blank check” for Ukraine, later added a sharp condemnation of Russia’s actions in the conflict.
“I don’t support what your country is doing to Ukraine; I also don’t support you killing children,” Mr. McCarthy told Russian journalists. “And we will continue to support it, because the rest of the world sees it that way.”
The statement was in stark contrast to Mr McCarthy’s recent signals about aid to Ukraine, amid pressure from far-right Republican lawmakers to review US support for Kyiv and cut American funding for the conflict.
Mr McCarthy’s words prompted a flood of cheers from Republican hawks, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who thanked Mr McCarthy. in a tweet “To call Russia confidently on the world stage.”
Mr McCarthy promised to put him in an awkward position with a small but critical faction of the conference which has been vocally opposed to further funding for Ukraine in the war.
The band of Republicans is usually ultraconservative, including some members of the House of Representatives who voted to reject Mr. McCarthy as speaker during several successful ballots at the beginning of the year. It also includes right-wing representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has been one of Mr. McCarthy’s closest allies.
In the past few weeks, as the Republicans have tried to coalesce around the plan to cut spending in advance of the debt ceiling negotiations with the White House, Ms. Greene has been waging a steady campaign against continued military aid and other forms of aid to Ukraine.
He called for a zero-out portion of the budget, charging that the Biden administration had “deceived“by the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and argued that the aid provided made the United States a very active participant in the country, stating, “Ukraine is not the 51st country.”
Under pressure from Ms. Greene and others, Mr. McCarthy have recently been sparing in public comments about Ukraine. Last month, the speaker declined to share details about the phone call with Mr. Zelensky, noting only that it was a “good conversation.”
But Ukrainian skeptics on the right recently lost one of their most effective platforms to inform voters, after Fox News fired Tucker Carlson. Mr. Carlson, who promoted the same view about Ukraine from the Prime-time slot, has given Ms. Greene and others a regular platform to address millions of Republican-leaning viewers, another way to keep pressure on Mr. McCarthy.
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