Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit the embattled nation amid his hesitancy to greenlight aid, a request the California Republican quickly shut down.
“He has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview.
When informed about the Ukrainian invitation, the speaker told CNN that he would not take the trip and blamed the Biden administration for not acting quickly enough to aid Ukraine. Still, McCarthy (R-Calif.) held his position that the U.S. should not be sending a “blank check” to Kyiv, repeating a position he initially made last fall that sparked uproar from members of both parties.