A McConnell-Vance Split Has Opened Up on Ukraine Funding Packaging

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell might be on board with Joe Biden’s request for a more than $100 billion supplemental funding package that couples support for Israel with more aid to Ukraine. But one of his colleagues, J.D. Vance, is hardly toeing the line. The freshman senator from Ohio—who presents as an anti-establishment, “America First” ideologue—is actively working to kill the request. Per Politico, he shared a memo with other senators on Monday that urged against linking aid for Ukraine and Israel, claiming that “Israel has an achievable objective; Ukraine does not.”

The funding request includes an additional $61.4 billion for Ukraine—which has already received more than $75 billion in US aid—as well as $14.3 billion for Israel, $9.1 billion for humanitarian aid in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza, $7.4 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, and a carve-out for border security.

In the memo, Vance insisted that support for the two US allies should be separated. “Israeli operations will help secure the Gaza Strip; the Ukraine war has jeopardized the European security architecture and threatens global disorder,” it read. “It is a vital interest that we contain and settle the crisis in Ukraine.” The memo also accused Ukraine of struggling “with deeply-rooted corruption.” (Of course, the Israeli government has its own corruption problems: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to neuter judicial power in the country in an apparent attempt to quash an ongoing bribery and fraud trial against him.)

Vance shared a far less polite version of the memo’s arguments during a Thursday appearance on Hannity, in which he said it was “completely disgraceful” for Biden to link a “Ukrainian escalation” with Israel’s war against Hamas. “It is a separate country and a separate problem,” Vance said. “If he wants to sell the American people on $60 billion more to Ukraine, he shouldn’t use dead Israeli children to do it.”

But in a Face the Nation interview that aired Sunday, McConnell criticized that sentiment. “I just think that’s a mistake,” he said of opposition to the White House’s funding request. “I know there are some Republicans in the Senate, and maybe more in the House, saying Ukraine is somehow different. I view it as all interconnected.” The minority leader sought to connect the two conflicts by noting that Hamas and Russia are both allies of Iran. “Iranian drones are being used in Ukraine and against the Israelis,” he said.

Vance is one of the nine Senate Republicans who last week wrote a letter opposing bundling funds for Ukraine and Israel; meanwhile, Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, has separately threatened to kill the funding package over the humanitarian aid it could provide to those living in the Gaza Strip. A number of House Republicans have also questioned the proposal, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan. However, Republicans Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs chairman, and Mike Turner, the House Intelligence chairman, both expressed support Sunday for the White House’s funding request.