Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Urgent Need To Support Ukraine And Calling On Speaker Johnson To Bring The Senate-Passed Bipartisan Supplemental National Security Package To The House Floor For A Vote
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the need for the House to put the Senate-passed bipartisan national security package on the floor for a vote to provide critical aid to Ukraine. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
The longer that the national security supplemental sits on Speaker Johnson’s desk, the more desperate the situation in Ukraine becomes.
The war in Ukraine has devastated entire cities and towns and villages – not just reducing their buildings to rubble, but also decimating their populations.
As a result, Ukraine is beginning to run out of soldiers. One Ukrainian village is even reported to have practically no men left, because so many were drafted to fight. And many, sadly, will not return.
A few weeks ago, I visited Ukraine with a group of Senators and I'll never forget when they took us in Lviv to a cemetery. It was a parking lot four months earlier, but they needed more room to bury their dead. Half the cemetery was already filled with graves and you saw the pictures on each gravesite of the young men and young women whose lives were taken so soon. Right across the way, there were workers working as we were looking at those who were already buried, building new graves, because they knew there'd be so many more dead. This was a sad sight, but it never saps the vitality and strength of President Zelenskyy and of the Ukrainian people.
So, we need to help them. What does Ukraine need? Ukraine is running out of munitions. Russia is now making three times – three times – as much artillery and munitions as the U.S. and Europe, and Ukrainian forces are suffering the consequences on the ground.
The supplemental package will provide Ukraine the resources it lacks: military equipment, munitions, intelligence support, weaponry, more.
And making sure Ukraine has the resources that it needs is one of the best ways we can help them compensate for being outnumbered on the battlefield.
Speaker Johnson knows this as well as I do: if he puts the supplemental on the floor of the House for a vote, it will pass with the same kind of bipartisan support we saw in the Senate.
So, my question for the Speaker is this: why delay providing Ukraine the critical aid it needs to defend itself against Vladimir Putin?
The supplemental package is Ukraine’s best chance to win this war.
The aid being supplied to Ukraine by our European allies, they’re generous, but it is not enough. Ukraine needs more help, and our allies around the world are looking at the House of Representatives – are looking at Speaker Johnson – to step up.
The choice for Speaker Johnson is clear: put the supplemental on the floor of the House for a vote and help deliver Ukraine the aid it desperately needs, or kowtow to President Trump and the MAGA hard-right who seem to want a victorious Putin.
History will remember what we do here in this time of great consequence for democracy. The Senate answered the call by passing the national security supplemental with a large bipartisan majority – now it’s time for the House to do the same. The clock is ticking.
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