Senator Leahy Threatens Cutting US Aid to Egypt on MSNBC

In an interview that aired Thursday on “MSNBC Live,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, tells MSNBC’s Cenk Uygur that if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak doesn’t step down before the fall elections, the threat of cutting off aids to Egypt could happen as quickly as "a matter of weeks or months."

Below is an excerpt from the interview that aired on Thursday's show.

CENK: If Mubarak does not step down, [will there be] a withdrawal of aid from Egypt?

SEN. LEAHY: We have a lot of aid in the pipeline now, that pipeline would be turned off. There is nobody republican or democratic in the senate and I suspect in the house that's going to vote for an aid package for Egypt under these circumstances. We have a long tradition after the Camp David accords of maintaining aid to Egypt and to Israel that's not going to continue under these circumstances. We have enough financial problems in our own country. Aid will not go to Egypt. aid will continue to Egypt if you have somebody that comes in with credibility that tries to help the people trying to help those that are unemployed those who are not being fed, somebody who wants to try and bring some order so one of their largest cash projects in Egypt tourism can come back.

CENK: I want to get a little bit more specific when would that pipeline of aid be cut off?

SEN. LEAHY: The money that's in the pipeline right now is controlled by the administration. The Congress will be facing, in a matter of weeks or months…[a] foreign aid bill, but there is no way, unless [there is] credibility.

Matt Saal is the executive producer of MSNBC Live.