The Biden administration took its quest for emergency military aid for Israel and Ukraine to Capitol Hill on Tuesday in an all-out effort to overcome House Republican attempts to decimate a $106bn package while cutting key parts of the White House’s domestic policy.
In a stormy session interrupted several times by demonstrators, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and defense secretary Lloyd Austin, told a Senate hearing that assistance to both countries was closely linked and should not be decoupled, as demanded by leading Republicans who are keen to back Israel but oppose any further help for Ukraine.
Blinken and Austin said this after Mike Johnson, the new rightwing speaker of the House of Representatives, introduced a bill proposing that aid be limited to $14.3bn for Israel and linked to budget cuts for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US tax authority, which the Biden administration has beefed up as part of its Inflation Reduction Act.
Top Biden officials urge Congress to pass military aid for Israel and Ukraine
Antony Blinken by U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine is licensed under Flickr Creative Commons
Antony Blinken by U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine is licensed under Flickr Creative Commons
Source:
The Guardian
