South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s proposal to erect a bust of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sparked backlash from the pro-Trump wing of the Republican Party, with lawmakers piling onto Wilson to accuse him of idiocy.
“I wanted to believe this legislation was satire from @TheBabylonBee, but it’s not,” Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky tweeted in response to Wilson’s proposal, which was filed on Monday and titled "Directing the Fine Arts Board to obtain a bust of the President of Ukraine…for display in the House of Representatives wing of the United States Capitol."
The Kentucky congressman’s sentiments were echoed by Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who asked whether “the $100+ billion” the US has already committed to Ukraine was “not enough?”
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also slammed the resolution, tweeting that US lawmakers are supposed to serve “America,” and “not Ukraine.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson also predictably slammed Wilson over his “insane” idea, accusing Zelensky of being “dictatorial,” banning opposition parties and “trying to ban an entire Christian denomination" (a reference to Kiev’s recent series of crackdowns on the pro-Moscow denomination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church).
“The legislation [Wilson] is putting forward would ensure that Zelensky’s bust is on display ‘in a suitable permanent location in the House of Representatives wing’ so we can worship him daily. This is crazy. Let’s hope we pull back,” Carlson urged.
Ordinary Republicans also lashed out at the bill, appealing to Wilson via his Twitter handle and asking why he’s decided to start “p***ing away all our hard earned tax money” on a bust, and whether it had anything to do with the laundering of funds through the military-industrial complex for use in his next reelection campaign. Others suggested that if Wilson wanted a bust of Zelensky, he should pay for it with his own money and keep it at his house. Others argued that Wilson’s shenanigans were proof that there is “a lot of work to do in the next primary season.”
Several dozen House Republicans and about a dozen GOP senators have voted against consecutive Ukraine aid packages since last spring, citing the need to fix domestic problems and America’s gargantuan federal debt. House Republicans held up moderate Republican Kevin McCarthy’s speakership for 15 rounds last week to force him into making several concessions, which could include an unprecedented $75 billion cut in defense spending, and a $130 billion total cut in discretionary spending to try and get debt levels under control. If approved, the defense cuts would be the largest single year cut since the end of World War II, and the largest cumulative cut since the brief post-Cold War shrinkage in Pentagon expenditures observed in the mid-1990s.