Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Vital Importance Of Providing Much-Needed Support To The People Of Ukraine

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the upcoming meeting at the White House with President Biden, Leader McConnell, Speaker Johnson, and Leader Jeffries to discuss the urgent need to pass the national security supplemental. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today at the White House, I will also make a strong case to Congressional leaders – especially to Speaker Johnson – about the immediate need to pass the national security supplemental.

I just got back from Ukraine a couple of days ago. What I saw there, what I learned there, will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The people of Ukraine, for all their courage, for all their spirit, for all their ability to defend their homeland, are dangerously close to running out of supplies. Ukraine is low on ammo, on anti-air defense systems, on munitions, on long rage artillery. This shortage is creating asymmetry on the battlefield: Russia can fire and take out Ukrainian targets, but Ukraine increasingly can’t fire back. They don’t have the weaponry that has the length of the Russian weaponry.

As President Zelenskyy has said to us: if Ukraine gets the package of aid they need, they will win the war. But if they don’t get those armaments, they will lose.

The Senate has stepped up to the plate. We have passed a strong, bipartisan supplemental, seventy votes.

The Speaker must likewise put the supplemental on the floor for a vote. I believe that if the supplemental were voted on in the House right now, it would pass with similar bipartisan support that we saw here in the Senate.

I hope – I pray – for the sake of our values, for the sake of our country, for the sake of the brave people in Ukraine and those who have died in the war, I hope Speaker Johnson recognizes the that history is watching us and watching him.

Failure would be the best thing Vladimir Putin could hope for.

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