President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy visit Ukraine in time an exclusive interview with CNN.
“Mr. McCarthy, he’s got to come here to see how we’re doing, what’s going on here, what wars have been wrought upon us, who’s fighting, who’s fighting. And then make your assumptions,” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
But the California Republican told CNN on Tuesday he has no plans to visit.
“Let’s clarify what I said: no blank checks, OK? So from that point of view, I don’t have to go to Ukraine to understand where there is a blank check,” McCarthy told CNN. “I will continue to receive my briefings and other information, but I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv to see it.”
Almost every important Western leader, and many not so important, has now made the daring trip to visit Zelensky, a pro-democracy hero, in Kiev.
However, McCarthy, who is known for taking pictures with celebrities, turned down an invitation to visit the Ukrainian leader.
His bridge of two hardline opinions in the GOP House on Ukraine is just about holding. The moderate Republicans who helped the GOP win a majority last November are just as important to the party’s hopes of maintaining control of the room next year as the pro-Trump extremists. But their priorities are in constant danger of being harmed by the speaker’s repeated games with Trump’s base and the former president’s most devoted followers in the House.
Making the trip was actually a political impossibility for McCarthy as Trump accused Biden of being more interested in Ukraine’s borders than in America’s.
McCarthy did not fully accept the demands of his most radical subordinates, such as Congressmen Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, to audit or end aid to Ukraine. His line on a white check can be interpreted as a position held between his radical colleagues and the belligerent internationalist Republicans who want to do more.
But with Russia only escalating its offensive and the GOP presidential primaries potentially pulling the party to the anti-aid side, it’s a position that could fall apart for much longer.
