House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested on Sunday that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if the Biden administration delivered aid to the country sooner despite defending Donald Trump withholding congressionally approved aid to Ukraine in 2019.
“This is going to get stronger and rougher and what really needs to happen is, Ukraine is not asking for American men and women to fight, all they’re asking for is the weapons to defend themselves,” McCarthy told Fox News. “If we would have taken those actions earlier instead of waiting till after Russia invaded, they probably never would’ve invaded had we done that sooner.”
McCarthy said if Biden had delivered the aid sooner, “it would have saved thousands of lives and probably the decision of Putin not to enter.”
In 2019 when Donald Trump was impeached for withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden, McCarthy defended the move.
“Nothing in that phone call is impeachable,” McCarthy, said at the time.
He also said experts were “wrong” to say that the call was improper, adding “people have different philosophical beliefs.”
The Biden administration has authorized $2.6 billion in security assistance and deployed more than 100,000 U.S. troops to NATO-member countries since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
