Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) went off on House Republicans on Thursday, mincing no words as she decried the group for preventing the swift delivery of aid to Ukraine.
During a debate on foreign aid on Thursday, DeLauro told the House Rules Committee that she remembered when certain GOP members said they would approve sending additional aid to Ukraine, if they could achieve a bipartisan agreement to boost border security.
“We accomplished bipartisan border security,” she said, referencing the, now-dead Senate bill which tied aid to tighter border restrictions. “And you know what? It was Donald Trump who said: Don’t. Give. Biden. A Win.”
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DeLauro, a ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, forcefully invited her Republican colleagues to do their jobs. “We have the opportunity to do what we do here, and that is to govern,” she said, raising her voice.
“And for months and months we have been diddling around while people are dying in Ukraine!” she shouted. “Don’t talk about what weapons we want to give them. We’re not giving them what they need now, and it has been months in the coming!”
“We should have picked up that Senate bill, brought it to the floor, and voted on it immediately and we would be out of here today and doing it, let us not rewrite what is happening,” she said. “It is on us, when we had that moment, we said no.”
As she left the caucus, DeLauro told reporters that if the new bill failed it wouldn’t be because of the Democrats.
On Wednesday, House Republicans unveiled three separate bills that would grant aid to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine respectively. The bill offers Ukraine $60.8 billion in aid. Embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would give lawmakers three days to review the legislation and is pushing to bring them to a vote as soon as Saturday. President Biden has already pledged to sign the aid bills into law.
In a statement on Wednesday, DeLauro urged the passage of the three bills. “We cannot retreat from the world stage under the guise of putting ‘America First,’” she said.
