McCarthy warns no ‘blank check’ to Ukraine in GOP majority

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that House Republicans will not write “a blank check” to Ukraine if they take control of the lower chamber next year, marking one of the clearest signs that aid to the war-torn country fighting off a Russian invasion will face a much tougher road in a GOP-led House.

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it,” McCarthy, who hopes to become Speaker if Republicans win the majority in the midterms, told Punchbowl News in an interview published Tuesday.

“It’s not a free blank check. And then there’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically. Not doing the border and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy’s comments come as Russian strikes since Oct. 10 have knocked out power for a third of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Belarus has also announced that 9,000 Russian troops will deploy to the country’s border with Ukraine.

While Ukraine aid has received bipartisan support in Congress so far, a minority of House Republicans taking a noninterventionist “America First” stance have opposed aid to Ukraine, setting up a bumpier road for future aid if Republicans win the House in the midterm elections as most analysts forecast. In May, 11 Republican senators and 57 House Republicans voted against a $40 billion security supplemental for Ukraine.

McCarthy’s “blank check” comments echo some of those concerns coming from the right flank. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted last month that President Biden “needs to understand that we are the USA not the US-ATM.”

Many Republicans in the House support military aid for Ukraine but are skeptical about nonmilitary humanitarian aid.

The Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, dinged a $12.2 billion Ukraine aid measure that was tacked on to a stopgap funding bill passed in September by saying that most of that money to Ukraine was for humanitarian aid. All but 10 House Republicans voted against that stopgap bill, mostly out of anger about being locked out of negotiations and a desire for government funding to run past the end of the year.

Republicans on the Hill have been frustrated at the Biden administration for not engaging enough with the GOP to justify their requests for the nonmilitary humanitarian aid requests. They have also been pushing oversight and transparency measures in new Ukraine funding measures. 

Outside groups have also been influential among Republicans. Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, lobbied against the $40 billion May aid package — a notable shift from its historical foreign policy stance. The group is not necessarily opposed to all Ukraine aid.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has also called on the Biden administration to provide longer-range artillery to Ukraine.