Trump-aligned group comes out against Biden $106 billion foreign aid bill
Mabinty Quarshie
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A nonprofit think tank founded by former President Donald Trump‘s allies has come out against President Joe Biden‘s $106 billion foreign aid supplemental, citing opposition to linking funding for Ukraine along with assistance for Israel in its battle against the terrorist group Hamas.
The America First Policy Institute, made up of dozens of former Trump White House officials, including President Brooke Rollins, Trump’s former domestic policy chief, opposed Biden’s request on Monday and claimed that since Ukraine’s war with Russia is now 600 days old, it is “not an emergency,” and therefore, the $61.4 billion in Ukraine funding should be separate from Biden’s supplemental.
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The group also protested Biden’s request for $14 billion for border security included in the supplemental, arguing for decreasing illegal immigration in the United States instead of the president’s “failed policy” of handling immigrants at the southern border.
“Throwing more money at the border is not the answer,” Chad Wolf, executive director of the America First Policy Institute and former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.
Instead, the group criticized Biden’s supplemental for ignoring the House-passed Secure the Border Act, which resumes construction of a border wall, increases Border Patrol agents, and criminalizes visa overstays.
This stance mirrors Trump’s previous comments about the war in the Middle East. In multiple campaign rallies since the Oct. 7 battle between Israel and Hamas began, Trump has claimed he will reinstate his 2017 travel ban, which targeted immigrants
from Muslim-majority countries.
“Biden canceled my travel ban on terror-plagued nations. He threw open our borders, surrendered to the Taliban,” Trump slammed Biden during a campaign stop in Derry, New Hampshire, last week. “This is the sickness and depravity that Joe Biden and his open borders maniacs want to bring to America, and we will not let them do it. We’re gonna close it up and … if you want to come into the country, you can, but you have to come in legally.”
Trump also claimed that members of Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, could be attempting to enter the U.S. through the southern border.
“I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants,” Trump continued.”If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you don’t like our religion, which a lot of them don’t, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country, and you are not getting in.”
America First Policy Institute also slammed other spending proposals calling for a match in spending cuts from Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
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“America does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem,” Michael Faulkender, chief economist of the group and former assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, said in a statement. “Simply by eliminating Joe Biden’s wasteful radical left spending on things we don’t need, our country can redirect that money to our friends, allies, and the issues that matter most to the security of the American people.”
The group pointed to rescinding nearly $22 billion in federal and state subsidies and regulatory credits related to producing electric vehicles as one tactic in offsetting the non-Ukraine supplemental requests from Biden.