Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) said during an interview over the weekend that the majority of the money included in the Senate’s foreign aid bill does not actually go toward foreign aid, it goes toward rebuilding America’s military.
Sullivan made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” with host Margaret Brennan when asked about the war in Ukraine.
“This is a new era of authoritarian aggression,” Sullivan said. “We’ve got the dictators all around the world, Xi Jinping, Putin, the Ayatollahs in Iran, North Korea, they are working together. We need a strategic response to that. A very dangerous time.”
“The Biden administration, with regard to national security, has not been serious,” he continued. “They cut the defense budget every year, inflation adjusted cuts. By the way, the secretary didn’t mention it, they cut homeland security every year too. Those are the two areas this administration consistently cuts, weakens our homeland security, weakens our defense. But this aid should be much more in terms of how we talk about it in terms of the supplemental. It’s less a foreign aid package and more a package about rebuilding our own industrial capacity to build weapons for ourselves.”
Sullivan said that part of the reason that he agreed to make the appearance on the show was to clear up false conceptions about what was in the bill.
“Sixty percent of this supplemental — and, look, it’s not a perfect bill, the House can make it better — 60% goes into our ability to build weapons for America,” he said. “Everything from nuclear subs — by the way, almost 40% of our attack subs are in maintenance right now. We don’t have the industrial capacity to protect ourselves.”
“Xi Jinping is scared to death of American subs. This supplemental unlocks $6 billion for our sub capacity to build subs, $5 billion to produce 155 millimeter howitzer rounds, and everything in between, javelins, stingers, tomahawks,” he concluded. “So, this is about our industrial capacity to protect America first and then, of course, we need to get some of these weapons to our allies who are facing existential threats, whether it’s Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine. And I think when you talk about it from that perspective, it should unite Republicans, not divide them.”
WATCH: