During House floor Debate on the 2026 Department of Defense appropriations package, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced an amendment to prohibit funds from being used for Ukrainian assistance.
00:00Mr. Speaker, as we're considering the Department of Defense appropriations of 2025 that is
00:08going to cost the American people $831 billion, my amendment would be that none of the funds
00:16made available in this act may be used for the assistance to the Ukraine war.
00:22This is a war that has nothing to do with America.
00:26Ukraine is not a NATO member nation and is not the American people's responsibility
00:32to pay for this war and it's not the American military's responsibility to fund it.
00:39My amendment would ensure that no further resources will be sent to Ukraine.
00:44To date, Congress has provided nearly $175 billion in assistance to Ukraine, including
00:50direct military aid, funding for their government and other forms of economic assistance.
00:57For the past four years, we had a Democrat president that cared more about the borders of Ukraine
01:02than the country he swore to protect the United States of America.
01:07They allowed our own country to be invaded by murderers, rapists and terrorists, all while
01:12sending nearly $175 billion to defend the borders of Ukraine and fund their entire economy.
01:20Our country funded their government at $1 billion a month and the American people were forced
01:26to pay for their businesses.
01:29At a time when our government shut down American-owned businesses, families could not afford groceries
01:35and our people were suffering.
01:37It was reported that nightlife in Ukraine was thriving and that there were more bars
01:43and restaurants open in the capital city, Kyiv, than before the start of the war.
01:49Yet the American people, they couldn't send their children to school, their businesses were
01:54shut down, and life here was closed.
01:58But the American people were paying for Ukraine.
02:01It was shameful that Americans were forced to foot the bill of the Ukrainian economy while
02:06ours suffered.
02:08Furthermore, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt governments in the world, and Zelensky is a
02:13dictator who, by the way, stopped elections in his country because of this war.
02:20He's jailed journalists, he's canceled his elections, controlled state media, and persecuted
02:26Christians.
02:27The American people should not be forced to continue to pay for another foreign war in
02:32a country that has no effect on our own, and we are not contractually bound to defend.
02:40Mr. Speaker, I reserve.
02:41The gentlewoman reserves her time.
02:44The gentlewoman fromâfor what purposes, the gentlewoman from Minnesota rise.
02:48Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.
02:51Gentlewoman is recognized.
02:52First, the majority has already eliminatedâalready eliminated funding for Ukraine's security
02:59assistance initiative in this bill.
03:01It's zero.
03:03I personally believe that to be a huge mistake, and that that only emboldens Putin.
03:09And President Trump seems to be agreeing now because just the other day he announced the
03:14decision to provide billions of dollars of equipment to Ukraine through our NATO partners.
03:19And I give the credit to the President for that decision.
03:22But now we have an amendment to further prohibit any support of Ukraine as they fight to defend
03:27their country from an illegal Russian invasion.
03:30Putin is attempting to rewrite the map of Europe through use of force.
03:34He's doing so in violation of international law.
03:37He's deliberately killing civilians, targeting hospital schools, destroying the economy and the
03:43livelihood of Ukraine in process.
03:47Putin has put his thugs, who are committing war crimes, on a mass scale, and the United
03:53States and the democratic nations of the worldâwell, they're putting us on notice.
03:59And that's why we must strongly oppose him.
04:02If we do not, then he or other authoritarian leaders will likely try something like this again,
04:08either in Ukraine or elsewhere in the world.
04:11America is not alone in our military support of Ukraine.
04:14Our NATO and European allies are continuing to provide billions of dollars of support themselves.
04:19And that's in line with the decision that President Trump announced the other day.
04:23So let's not abandon the EU or our NATO allies now, and let's not abandon Ukraine.
04:29The Ukrainian people did not ask for this war.
04:31They deserve our continued support.
04:33I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
04:37And Madam Chair, I'd like to yield 60 seconds to the gentleman from California.
04:41The gentleman from California is recognized for 60 seconds.
04:43I rise in opposition to the gentlelady's amendment.
04:48Sadly, we saw for years how the Biden administration failed to provide Ukraine the resources necessary
04:53to fight back in an effective way against Russian aggression.
04:57Just the other day, President Trump took decisive action to provide weapons to Ukraine to defend
05:01against these unprovoked attacks.
05:04The President is right to support efforts to ensure innocent lives are no longer lost.
05:09He is right to undertake efforts to stop the bloodshed.
05:11As he continues to work toward a peaceful solution, we should not now remove the ability to provide
05:16what he thinks will help the Ukrainian people to prevent further losses and use as leverage
05:21to negotiate a peace agreement, hopefully very soon.
05:24With that, I urge a no vote on the amendment and reserve the balance of my time.
05:27Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
05:29The gentlewoman reserves and the gentlewoman from Georgia is recognized.
05:32Mrs. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
05:36The gentlewoman has two and a half minutes remaining.
05:39Thank you, Mrs. Speaker.
05:41Democrats used to be the anti-war party.
05:44Yet every single Democrat voted to fund the war in Ukraine.
05:48This funding has been approximately $175 billion of the American people's hard-earned tax dollars.
05:56Yet the American people are in debt by $37 trillion in debt.
06:02It's said that the Ukrainian people didn't ask for that war.
06:05Well, the American people didn't ask for this debt.
06:08And the American people are not obligated to defend every single country around the world.
06:13At what point do we defend our own citizens and their ability to actually be able to afford life in America?
06:23As our debt continues to climb because Congress refuses to stop spending on America's last priorities
06:30and refuses to stop spending on foreign aid and foreign wars, the American people will have no chance.
06:39Now that our border is closed, thank God to Tom Homan and ICE and President Trump and his administration,
06:47we are conducting the largest deportation operations our country has ever seen.
06:52And we must continue to put America first and continue to address the needs of our own people within our own homeland.
07:02This means no more assistance to Ukraine.
07:05The only assistance that America should be providing is a pathway to peace, not furthering a war.
07:13That is not what the American people want.
07:16That is not what the American people voted for.
07:19Americans deserve to not have their hard-earned tax dollars fund a bloody and deadly war in Ukraine.
07:28We need peace, and we need peace all over the world.
07:32This is an unwinnable war in which Americans are footing the bill, and it has resulted in mass casualties in both nations.
07:41Americans don't want to pay for murder.
07:44Enough estimates show that over 1.5 million people have been killed and injured since the start of this war.
07:51A Ukrainian assessment earlier in 2024 placed Ukrainian troop losses at 80,000 killed and 400,000 wounded.
08:00Estimates from June of this year show that approximately a million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded.
08:06These are people's sons, these are people's brothers, their cousins, their husbands, and an entire generation of Ukrainian men are being wiped out, and so are Russian men.
08:19This isn't something the American people should pay for.
08:23Thank you, Ms. Speaker.
08:25The Generalwoman from Minnesota is recognized.
08:28Thank you, Madam Chair.
08:29Once again, I just want to stress to the body, and I believe this is a huge mistake, but the majority has already eliminated any funding for Ukraine security assistance initiative in this bill.
08:46So, the amendment accomplishes not cutting any funding, but I would like to just point out again, Madam Chair, when I talked about international war crimes and the previous speaker was talking about, you know, the loss of life in Ukraine,
09:06there are 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped by Russia, ripped from their homes, the arms of their mothers and fathers.
09:18That's a war crime, and we should not be silent on that.
09:22And with that, I thank President Trump for now realizing it's important that we come to Ukraine's aid through our NATO partners, and I yield back.
