Biden urges allies to send additional aid to Ukraine

Well, President Biden, as you know, is back in the U.S. following a three-day trip to Eastern Europe. During his visit, the president made a surprise stop in Kiev before traveling to speak with some of his NATO allies in Poland. CBS News senior White House correspondent Weija Zhang joins us now. Weija, thanks for being with us. So President Biden is obviously urging his NATO allies to provide more aid to Ukraine.

How big of a role is the U.S. willing to play in the war? Well, the president has said from day one that they will be standing next to Ukraine for as long as it takes, which is exactly the same message he reiterated when he visited Kiev. So there really is no time stamp on that, but Republicans have made pretty clear that they're not, in their words, going to write a blank check. So it's one thing for the president to make these commitments, but of course he's not the one that, you know, can sign off on this money. And there is fatigue here in Washington when it comes to Republicans for, you know, spending billions and billions of dollars on this war. And so those are going to be some tough conversations coming up when it comes to, you know, having to provide more money for Ukraine.

But certainly if it were up to the president, he has made clear that he's going to give Ukraine whatever aid they need to continue in this war. The question though, Lana, is not just what aid they can provide to sustain their current position. Ukraine wants more to win, to change their position from, you know, maintaining what they are doing right now to ending the war by beating Russia. And that is why right now another conversation is those F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine has long asked for in the White House. The administration has long said they will not be willing to provide. Of course they have reversed their course before when it comes to decisions on what they will and will not give Ukraine. So that is another big question that we are tracking to see if that happens with those jets.

I don't. We just, as you mentioned, and we've spoken to defense ministers here and commanders on the ground, they are looking at those jets and they've looked at weapons systems that have been delivered here, including Heimars. But as we know, the U.S. is struggling to come to terms on its own government funding plan. How much more military aid can the Biden administration provide before the money runs out? Well, you know, the president just announced another half a billion dollars when he was in Ukraine. So again, you know, the administration is not willing, has never been willing to say this is a cap.

And we have asked many times whether there's a figure that they are willing to say publicly that, you know, that is the firm amount that we can supply and when the money runs out, it runs out. But President Biden has said many times that this is not just about what's unfolding in Ukraine right now, that this is about setting precedent for how Western nations, how democracies deal with autocracies. And so in the view of this White House, this investment is not just about Ukraine winning the war and beating Russia. This investment in their view is about, you know, sending a message to other would-be Putin's, other would-be Russia's about what will happen if you try to dismantle a democracy and the leading role that the U.S. is willing to play. But again, you know, dollars matter when it comes to providing those checks.

And we have yet to see what the Republican proposal is if you're asking for a line by line. But certainly they've made clear, Charlie, that at some point they're not going to continue to pay for this war in Ukraine. All right. We're just going for us at the White House. Thank you, Weijia. We'll be right back.

Weijia Jiang, Ukraine, russian invasion, war in ukraine, president biden, NATO, military aid, war, russia