Fresh off of a House vote approving a major aid bill supporting Ukraine against the ongoing invasion by Russia, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) led a delegation to Ukraine today to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We, on a bipartisan basis as members of Congress, are here for the people of Ukraine,” Kean told Zelenskyy at the meeting. “It was a strong bipartisan vote to ensure that we stood with the people of Ukraine and the ideals that you, as a people, espouse… It’s important that we stand with you as fellow leaders of people who value freedom and opportunity for their constituents.”
The aid bill that passed on Saturday, which provides $60 billion to support Ukraine’s war efforts, was a long time in the making. Congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans had long been ardently pushing to get more aid to Kyiv, warning that Russia would grow more emboldened with every day of delay; a large group of right-wing House Republicans successfully derailed those negotiations for months, but the impasse was finally overcome this weekend.
All present New Jersey House members voted for the bill except for Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), who has established himself as the state’s chief skeptic of Ukraine aid. (Another congressman, Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr., was not present for the vote due to health issues, but given his past votes he almost certainly would have supported the bill.)
But as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Kean has played a particularly notable role in Congress’s dealings with Ukraine. The trip he led today also included three other members of the Europe subcommittee: Massachusetts Democrat William Keating, Texas Republican Nathaniel Moran, and Pennsylvania Democrat Madeleine Dean.