US President Joe Biden and top congressional Democrats piled pressure on Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to sign on to more US aid for Ukraine in a rare White House meeting on Tuesday, warning that the costs of inaction would be “dire”.
Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice-president, met with the leading Democrats and Republicans from both House and Senate in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning. They were joined by CIA director Bill Burns and Shalanda Young, director of the White House’s Office for Management and Budget.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, told reporters it was “one of the most intense” meetings he had “ever encountered” in his “many meetings in the Oval Office”.