Rep. Alford Defends McCarthy’s Decision to Prioritize America in Conversation with Newsmax

Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., told Newsmax on Thursday he agreed with the decision by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to deny a request by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to address a joint session of Congress.

“I think it was the right call in the speaker’s house that America comes first today in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Alford told “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE.” “We have a lot on our plate. We’ve got to get this defense appropriation bill passed; it failed today to pass the rules package to actually get it on the floor.

“We’ve got to get those votes. We’ve got to give our military a 5.2% raise. We’ve got to get the woke indoctrination out of our military.”

Zelenskyy was in Washington on Thursday to meet with President Joe Biden after attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York earlier this week. Biden is seeking an additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine for its war against Russia, but Alford said two conditions must be met before any more taxpayer dollars are sent to Kyiv.

“No. 1, we’ve appropriated $113 billion so far for Ukraine in the last two years,” Alford said. “Not all of that money has been spent.”

Alford said $67 billion has gone to Ukraine through direct military assistance, but $5 billion of that has yet to be spent. He also said Biden has “slow-walked” the war from the beginning and should have given more aid and military equipment to Ukraine at the outset so the country can win the war.

“Yet it has dragged on and on and on,” he said. “We saw this spring-summer offensive that really didn’t amount to all that much. Not a lot of [lost land recaptured].

“The second condition, and I think this is very important for the American people — I know it is for my district: We need a clear, unclassified strategy of what success and victory looks [like], and I want to hear it out Zelenskyy’s mouth,” Alford said. “We have not heard that. The American people deserve to know what the endgame is before we give them another dime.”

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