Karine Jean-Pierre REFUSES to say if Biden was telling the truth when he said he’d made a ‘deal’ with Congress over Ukraine funding – and insists another aid package will be announced ‘soon’

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether President Joe Biden was telling the truth when he said there was a deal with Republicans in Congress over Ukraine financing.

On Sunday, Biden said he had a deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy to send more money to Kiev.

His comments led Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz to accuse the speaker of making a “secret deal.” However, McCarthy told reporters there was no deal.

The White House offered no clarity on Monday.

“There is clearly bipartisan support to continue financing to Ukraine,” Jean-Pierre said when asked if there was a specific deal.

“What we’re seeing from Congress right now is that there has been overwhelming support,” she added.

She declined to say what exactly Biden was referring to when he told reporters he had made a deal with McCarthy on Ukraine.

“I’m not going to go beyond what the president has said,” she said. She said more aid would be announced “soon.”

Biden Sunday, speaking about the bill to fund the government through mid-November, when asked whether he could trust McCarthy on the next deal.

‘We just made one about Ukraine. So we’ll find out,” he replied without giving any details about what he meant.

His comment left room for interpretation that a new deal had been struck with McCarthy on financing the war effort – despite opposition from hardline Republicans.

Congress averted a government shutdown by passing a short-term funding bill this weekend, but it passed without any funding for the war effort in Ukraine.

And the Pentagon warned congressional leaders that they were running out of money to replace the weapons the U.S. sent to Kiev, according to a letter to them obtained by the Associated Press.

Biden and his administration have insisted on continuing to fund Ukraine’s fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But the speaker denied that a deal had been struck.

“There’s no side deal, so I don’t know who’s bringing that up,” McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday.

McCarthy’s comments came after Gaetz, who is threatening to push for a vote to remove McCarthy from the presidency, went to the House of Representatives to rail against McCarthy, accusing him of making a “secret deal” with Democrats on the financing of Ukraine.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear who the Speaker of the House of Representatives already works for, and it’s not the Republican Conference.”

Ukraine’s financing has become an issue for the conservative Republican base, which opposes it.

Gaetz berated McCarthy for “telling us what was in the secret agreement with Ukraine” as he railed against him. The conservative wing of Republicans in the House of Representatives also opposed a temporary deal to fund the government.

So McCarthy went around them and used the Democrats’ votes to pass the funding measure.

Meanwhile, despite heavy lobbying from the government, including personal appeals from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin – funding for Ukraine was left out of the measure.

Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord told House and Senate leaders in a letter Monday that $1.6 billion remains of the $25.9 billion Congress provided to replenish U.S. military supplies moving to Ukraine are gone.

McCord said the US has run out of long-term financing for Kiev.

“We have already been forced to delay the replenishment of our own forces to hedge against an uncertain funding future,” McCord said in the letter. “Failure to replenish our military services in a timely manner could harm the readiness of our military.”

Meanwhile, Biden plans to call on allies to reassure them that U.S. support for Ukraine will continue, according to Bloomberg News.

The talks could start as early as Tuesday.