Trump Pushes Ukraine Aid as a Loan With Funding Bill Stalled: “Do it this way. Loan them the money. If they can make it, they pay us back. If they can’t make it, they don’t have to pay us back.”; GOP Senators Speak With Trump About Ukraine Aid Loan Pitch, and related stories

Trump Pushes Ukraine Aid as a Loan With Funding Bill Stalled

Former President Donald Trump pushed for providing Ukraine aid as a loan as efforts to approve further assistance remain deadlocked in Congress amid a domestic fight over immigration and border policy.

“They want to give them $60 billion more,” Trump said Wednesday at a rally in North Charleston, as he campaigned before South Carolina’s Feb. 24 Republican presidential primary. “Do it this way. Loan them the money. If they can make it, they pay us back. If they can’t make it, they don’t have to pay us back.”

“Why should you just hand it over to them? Do it as the form of a loan,” he added.

Trump likened the plan to deals he said he cut with athletes who had potential but lacked money at the start of their careers.

“I do that with athletes,” Trump said. “You know like a professional golfer who I think is very good. They don’t have any money, but they have a lot of talent. I’ll say here’s the deal.”

Trump pushed his allies in Congress to kill a proposal that included both tougher border policies with Ukraine funding, urging Republicans to hold out for a “perfect” deal on immigration. Senators passed a $95 billion package Tuesday that drops the immigration measures and includes over $60 billion in Ukraine aid, along with funds for Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, though, is refusing to take it up until a GOP-only bill on immigration is enacted.

Some Senate Republicans who support Ukraine aid in principle, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, backed an idea floated by Trump over the weekend in a social media post that would make the foreign aid to Ukraine and other countries zero-interest loans with no scheduled repayments. —> READ MORE HERE

GOP senators speak with Trump about Ukraine aid loan pitch:

GOP senators said they spoke with former President Trump this week about his pitch to provide aid to Ukraine as a loan with strings attached, just ahead of the upper chamber passing a bipartisan $95 billion foreign aid package.

Republicans say they reached out to Trump about the idea and spoke to him on a Monday call.

“There was a group of us, and we were discussing on kind getting an understanding what he’s what he was thinking, and if he was serious about this, because if he is, then let’s figure out how to actually work this,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said. “And it was actually a great conversation.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said he also spoke with Trump, along with a handful of members, on the group call about the idea, which he said he thinks is getting “a lot of momentum” and argued isn’t “overly offensive to the recipients.”

“I mean, why shouldn’t Ukraine, which is mineral rich with the things that we need as a free country, or for that matter, frozen Russian assets that we have, why wouldn’t we make those things available to the American taxpayer to replenish the generosity,” Cramer said late Monday.

Cramer voted in favor of the package that passed the Senate 70-29 early Tuesday morning and contained $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. Mullin voted against it.

About $26 billion in funding would go toward replenishing U.S. weapons and munitions provided to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, a bill summary outlines. The bill also includes billions of dollars in funding for the submarine industrial base and measures aimed at bolstering artillery and munitions.

In a Saturday post on Truth Social, the former president said no funds “in the form of foreign aid should be given to any country unless it is done as a loan.”

He argued the loan could be made on “EXTRAORDINARILY GOOD TERMS,” with no interest and “unlimited life,” but certain strings attached.

“THE DEAL SHOULD BE (CONTINGENT!) THAT THE U.S. IS HELPING YOU, AS A NATION, BUT IF THE COUNTRY WE ARE HELPING EVER TURNS AGAINST US, OR STRIKES IT RICH SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, THE LOAN WILL BE PAID OFF AND THE MONEY RETURNED TO THE UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. —>READ MORE HERE

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