Schumer makes plea to Johnson to pass Ukraine aid: ‘He has to do the right thing’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a plea for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to pass aid to Ukraine, during a Friday interview.

“We need Speaker Johnson to make sure that we get that aid,” Schumer said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “If he put the bill on the floor, it would pass. There are a good number of Republicans in the House who know how important it is, and he has to see that history is on his back.”

“He cannot have obeisance to Donald Trump,” Schumer continued. “He has to do the right thing here.”

Schumer visited Ukraine Friday, as part of a congressional delegation set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Senate Majority Leader also pushed Johnson to pass a national security spending package that the Senate passed last week, which features $60 billion in Ukraine aid.

Schumer also stressed that the delegation in Ukraine heard “in great detail” how Ukraine would win if it receives the aid. He also said an American in Ukraine told the delegation, how, if the U.S. does not provide Ukraine with further aid, “the Russians could be at the Polish border within a year.”

For his part, Johnson has pushed back against the Senate’s package, signaling that he won’t bring it to the House floor because it doesn’t have border security measures that House Republicans want.

“[In] the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,” Johnson said last week in a statement. “America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”

In the CNN interview, Schumer also said Johnson should come to Ukraine and visit with Zelensky.

“If he meets with the leading generals, if he meets with Zelensky, if he meets with the Americans on our side, there’ll be no way he won’t be convinced that we need this aid,” Schumer said.