The White House has dismissed polling showing that a majority of Americans don't want to send any more money to Ukraine to fund NATO's proxy war against Russia, ruling out that assistance would stop in spite of public wishes.
"We have seen throughout this war solid support from the American people, solid support from the Congress in a bipartisan and bicameral way for continuing to support Ukraine and we're going to stay focused on that," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
"It’s not just important to people of Ukraine, but it’s important to our European allies and partners, particularly our NATO allies, given that this fighting is on the doorstep of many of those NATO allies,” and to the “national security of the American people," Kirby added.
The White House spokesman inserted the traditional 'Vladimir Putin the bogeyman' scare tactic, telling the Americans who don’t want to continue funding the proxy war that "if we just sit back and we let Putin win, we let him take Ukraine, where does it stop next?"
The White House is seeking Congressional approval to sneak tens of billions of dollars more in additional “supplemental funding” into next year’s defense budget, with the Pentagon coming up with new creative ways to scrounge additional cash from already approved outlays by using accounting tricks.
While most US media and most of the US political class in Washington continue to support funding Ukraine (apart from a handful of MAGA-leaning Republicans), a bombshell poll published last week revealed that 55 percent of Americans don’t want Congress to authorize any more funds for Ukraine. 51 percent said the US has already done enough to help. Nearly 8 in ten expressed concerns about the conflict dragging on, with 59 percent fearing that the Ukrainian crisis could unleash a wider war in Europe. 56 percent of respondents said they continue to see the Ukrainian conflict as a national security threat – down from 72 percent in February of 2022.
Ordinary Americans' shifting attitudes toward the Ukrainian crisis have been picked up on by presidential candidates from both major parties, as well as independents, with major candidates calling for an end to the conflict, and pointing to the West’s role in starting it.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate among Republicans by a long shot, has promised to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours of winning the 2024 election. Democratic Party hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promises to talk to Russia and has emphasized that the West has "no business putting NATO in Ukraine." Leading independent candidate Cornel West has also called for a negotiated settlement to the crisis.