More Funding For Ukraine Seems Likely. More COVID Money Seems... Less Likely.

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The White House pitch to provide consistent support for Ukraine through the end of September at a cost of $33 billion has broad support in Congress. Meanwhile, the administration's ask for additional COVID funds remains tied up in disagreements over where the money will come from.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Hassanatu in Maryland. After 30 days of observing the Islamic month of Ramadan,
0:05.1	I'm about to break my fast one last time and get ready for eat-e-delphit-dit. This podcast was
0:10.4	recorded at... 2-12 Eastern on Monday, May 2nd. Things may have changed by the time you hear it,
0:16.5	like I will be celebrating with my family and enjoying food during daylight.
0:20.3	You move our rack. Okay, here's the show. I was sitting next to Osma at the White House Correspondence
0:28.4	Dinner on Saturday and we were all keeping very close tabs on when sundown was. So they could
0:33.0	pick their fast, the longer several other people at the table. Hey there, it's the Empire Politics
0:37.5	Podcast. I'm Scott Detro. I cover the White House. I'm Kelsey Snelli, cover Congress,
0:41.9	and I'm Mara Liason, National Political Correspondent. And the Biden administration has asked Congress for
0:47.7	$33 billion in aid for Ukraine. That's more than double the $14 billion in support that's been
0:54.0	authorized so far. That money is intended to last for a while until the end of the fiscal year on
0:59.4	September 30th. It would provide Ukraine with a lot of money and a lot more weaponry and a lot more
1:04.8	certainty than it's gotten so far. Biden is also asking for COVID money that is languished in
1:10.3	Congress for weeks. That seems... We're going to talk about it. It seems a little less clear cut
1:14.8	than what's happening with the Ukraine money. So Kelsey, let's actually start with the COVID
1:18.6	funding. What is the White House asking for and why has this been such a struggle lately?
1:23.9	I mean, they're basically asking for the amount of money that they weren't able to get in the
1:27.3	last round of funding because there was this fight among House Democrats about this process of
1:34.4	offsetting spending that forced them to strip out money for prevention and global vaccine
1:41.3	distribution. Now the White House is coming back and saying, okay, now we really do need that money.
1:46.0	We need to make sure that people have access to vaccines across the world and that the country
1:50.4	is adequately prepared if there's another surge or another variant or whatever else may come
	...

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