(25 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
POOL
Washington, DC – 25 September 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. Mike Johnson, House Speaker:
"I wasn’t able to schedule a meeting with Zelenskyy this week because I had a very busy one, as you all might have noticed. And I don’t even think I’ll be in town now tomorrow, so but look what I would have communicated to them if we sat down. We would have talked about this letter about the ambassador. I think it was a very terrible development. And it strains the relations between the two nations at a time that that’s very unfortunate for Ukraine. So I regret that.
(Reporter: Is that a threat to stop funding?)
No, I’m not making any threats. I mean, I’ll leave my comments to the content of the letter which I know you’ve all seen, but I do think it requires immediate attention and action. And I think you should terminate the ambassador and move forward with somebody who understands the appropriate lines for our allies to regard. We’re in the middle of a hotly contested national election and we don’t need foreign countries intervening and letting their opinions be heard at a time like this. I’ve expressed the same to our allies around the world. All that I’ve talked to. Americans should decide American elections without foreign interference. That’s a really important principle."
++ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fire his country’s ambassador to the U.S. as Republicans criticize the war-torn leader’s visit to a swing-state Pennsylvania site producing munitions for the Russia-Ukraine war as a political stunt.
The Republican Johnson’s demand Wednesday came as Zelenskyy addressed the United Nations in New York on the eve of his visit to Washington, D.C., where he has plans Thursday to brief senators on Capitol Hill about the war effort before meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.
“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelenskyy.
Johnson said no Republicans were invited to the plant tour arranged by Ambassador Oksana Markarova to Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is Biden’s hometown.
Johnson called the visit an “intentionally political move” and said it “has caused Republicans to lose trust in Ambassador Markarova’s ability to fairly and effectively serve as a diplomat in this country. She should be removed from her post immediately.”
The speaker’s stern demand for the swift removal of Markarova, a well-received diplomat in Washington who has been a fixture on Capitol Hill since the outset of the war — even sitting as a guest in the House visitor’s gallery during pivotal speeches — comes at a daunting time for Ukraine as Zelenskyy works to ensure U.S. support for the war effort in an election year.
While Biden and Democrats in Congress have largely stood with Ukraine since the outset of the Russian invasion in 2022, sending billions in U.S. aid to buy weaponry and support services, Republicans have split deeply. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has turned the GOP toward a new America First movement that generally prefers to limit U.S. involvement overseas, and he often speaks admirably of Russia and its president, Vladmir Putin.
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