Defence secretary Lloyd Austin and secretary of state Antony Blinken will appear before a US Senate hearing on Tuesday to argue in favour of Joe Biden’s $105bn emergency aid request for Israel and Ukraine, The Guardian reports.
Austin and Blinken will be in front of a mostly friendly audience in the Senate, the newspaper notes.
Yesterday, the White House said that offsets sought by House Republicans for Israel and Ukraine spending would be “devastating” for US national security.
"Politicising our national security interests is a nonstarter. Demanding offsets for meeting core national security needs of the United States – ulike supporting Israel and defending Ukraine from atrocities and Russian imperialism – would be a break with the normal, bipartisan process and could have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
The leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has called for combining aid to Ukraine and Israel. However, in recent weeks, more and more Republicans in the Senate have joined the majority of their fellow party members in the House of Representatives in advocating for a slowdown or termination of US aid to Ukraine.