Speaker Johnson: US ‘can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine’

New Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) said a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine could empower China in comments Thursday.

“We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine, because I don’t believe it would stop there, and it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan. We have these concerns,” Johnson said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“We’re not going to abandon them, but we have a responsibility, a stewardship responsibility, over the precious treasure of the American people, and we have to make sure that the White House is providing the people with some accountability for the dollars,” Johnson continued in regards to funding to Ukraine.

Johnson has shown skepticism toward more aid to Ukraine in the past, voting against two different appropriations bills that provided aid to the Ukrainians in September and last year. After gaining the gavel, Johnson was asked whether he supported additional aid to Ukraine.

“We all do … we are going to have conditions on that, so we’re working through,” Johnson said while walking through the Capitol, in a clip posted Wednesday to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“We want accountability, and we want objectives that are clear from the White House,“ Johnson later said in response to a question about what the conditions would be. 

President Biden announced the sending of a budget request to Congress requesting aid for both Israel and Ukraine in a speech last Thursday. The request is expected to be about $100 billion, with a large portion of the funds for Ukraine.

Johnson said he told the White House he wants to split the issues of the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“I told the staff at the White House today, that our consensus among House Republicans is that we need to bifurcate those issues,” Johnson told Hannity.