Sen. Vance told Elon Musk that lawmakers face ’moral blackmail’ to support endlessly funding Ukraine or face accusations of supporting Putin.
The proposed $61 billion funding for Ukraine in a spending package fails to include corruption prevention and transparency measures, a group of GOP senators said during a discussion with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy ahead of a key procedural Senate vote on Monday night.
Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) joined Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy to criticize funding Ukraine with no strategy to conclude the war.
The discussion took place on the X Spaces forum on the platform formerly known as Twitter before several Republican senators spoke on the floor late into Monday night.
The goal for the Senate Republicans is to kill the legislation before it goes any further, the lawmakers said. They urged listeners to contact their House members to demand they oppose the funding package.
Mr. Lee argued that the bill turns a “blind eye” to corruption in Ukraine.
“There is not, to my knowledge, anything in this bill that adequately deals with the issue of corruption [in Ukraine],” Mr. Lee said.
“The truth is, this thing still has about $8 billion going directly to the government of Ukraine,” he added.
“These are people who have really set world records for corruption. It’s an art form over there, apparently. That’s nothing denigrating against the Ukrainian people but their government does have a long history, and tradition, and practice of corruption,” he added.
The spending package ignores America’s security at the southern border to prioritize sending aid to Ukraine, Mr. Lee charged. He argued that this goes against a commitment Republicans made “to each other and to our voters and to our states.”
“By voting yes and passing this bill now, it empowers drug cartels, it dissolves our borders, it spends insane amounts of money that we don’t have on the priorities of foreign countries all at the same time,” he said, directing his criticism at fellow Republicans who support the bill.
