Senator Marshall Grills White House Budget Director Shalanda Young On Never-Ending Ukraine Funding

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, grilled White House Budget Director, Shalanda Young, on the Administration’s never-ending pursuit of providing additional aid to Ukraine even if Congress does not pass the supplemental spending.

You may click HERE or on the image above to listen to Senator Marshall’s full remarks.

Highlights from Senator Marshall’s remarks include:

Senator Marshall: [I’m going to] ask a couple questions about Ukraine funding. Yesterday POLITICO reported that the Department of Defense has sent $10 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine that it does not have the money to replace. Is that reporting accurate?

Shalanda Young: Senator, I think no one was officially quoted from the administration. And the article, I’ve read the article. So I’m not going to comment on unauthorized or people who speak on background. What I will say is, if our Ukraine supplemental passes the House –

Senator Marshall: I understand that, is $10 million funding accurate? That’s not my question, I wish you would just answer my questions. 

Shalanda Young: Senator, you asked me a question based on unnamed sources.

Senator Marshall: So is the $10 million figure accurate? Really, in reality, we didn’t just send $113 billion. There’s a big difference between what these weapons we send cost versus the value of them today – so in reality, this is not a question in a reality we really sent them $121 billion, and you said nothing to dispute that as being accurate. I want to go on. Here is a question for you. Does the administration have the ability to provide any additional aid to Ukraine, in the absence of congressional action? Yes or no?

Shalanda Young: So Senator, we have to do the supplemental.

Senator Marshall: I understand that’s your opinion. We don’t have to do anything. That’s your opinion. Will you just try to answer my question? Does the administration have the ability to provide any additional aid to Ukraine in the absence of congressional action? That’s a yes or no question.

Shalanda Young: Senator, if we have additional replenishment funds – 

Senator Marshall: So you’re not going to answer my question. 

Shalanda Young: Senator, I’m trying to. If we have additional replenishment funds, if materials come in cheaper than we thought, that will give us the room to maybe do another drawdown package, we’re looking at that. The Department of Defense goes in and buys equipment, if some comes in cheaper. And we have –

Senator Marshall: Let me ask you the question in a different way. Will this administration provide Ukraine any additional aid in any form until Congress passes the supplemental?

Shalanda Young: Senator, if we believe we can do that, to your first question, if we believe we could do that without affecting U.S. readiness in a detrimental way. We absolutely will. It is the president’s commitment that we will not let Vladimir Putin march through Ukraine. 

Senator Marshall: But we’ve been told over and over by this administration that we need to spend another ten or twenty billion dollars to replenish what we’ve given to Ukraine, so we didn’t properly account for what we’ve already sent them. I still think we’re ten or twenty billion dollars short of what we want.