![CNN analyst Leah Wright Rigueur said Tuesday that Americans are fed up with Ukrainian aid because it's affecting their pocketbooks. [Screenshot CNN]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-05-at-10.25.56-AM-e1701790017618.png "CNN analyst Leah Wright Rigueur said Tuesday that Americans are fed up with Ukrainian aid because it's affecting their pocketbooks. [Screenshot CNN]")
CNN analyst Leah Wright Rigueur said Tuesday that Americans are fed up with Ukrainian aid because it’s affecting their pocketbooks.
Congress is set to vote on extending aid to Ukraine as the country’s all-out war with Russia nears its two-year anniversary. The Ukraine funding is part of a $106 billion package that President Joe Biden proposed in October, following Hamas’ attack on Israel. The legislation includes more than $61 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel and $1.4 billion for state and local governments to address the migrant crisis.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly asked what happened to public sentiment regarding Ukrainian aid between Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Dec. 2022 visit to Washington, D.C., and the present day.
At the time of Zelenskyy’s address to a joint session of Congress, 30 percent of Americans said the U.S. should be doing more to support Ukraine, while 28 percent said the U.S. was doing too much, according to Gallup. By Oct. 2023, public opinion had turned against Ukraine, with just 25 percent of Americans calling for more aid to Ukraine and 41 percent saying the level of U.S. support is excessive.
Rigueur responded to Mattingly by arguing that the attack on Israel distracted Americans from the war in Ukraine and that Zelenskyy is rightfully concerned that U.S. funding for Israel would stem the flow of aid to his country.
“The American public sees these two things as in conflict because of the monetary issue. And I think this is where, again, Errol’s point about leadership is really important, because it’s politicians that have to sell that to the American people,” Rigueur said. (RELATED: Zelenskyy Says Summer Counteroffensive Did Not Achieve Its Aims)
“The other part of this is that inflation — I mean, the way that people are feeling their pocketbook — pocketbook politics actually matters. And so, irrespective of how the budget is allocated, one of the things that really maters to the American people is that they are correlating what they are feeling in their pockets with all of these various wars and things that are going on,” she continued. “And so they’re saying, ‘Well, I see that my groceries cost a lot of money. I also see that we are spending a lot of money on things like Ukraine, things like Israel, that maybe have no bearing on me. But in particular Ukraine, because that’s somewhere far away, and I’m not feeling it in my home.'”
Inflation remains one of the top issues for voters ahead of the 2024 election.