The collapse of Ukraine aid in Congress is months away, and is exactly what Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell feared.
McConnell warned that political support for Ukraine was at risk as a small but vocal contingent of fellow Republican lawmakers stepped up their efforts against sending US money abroad to fight Russia.
First in a series of high-profile speeches this summer and then in a direct venture into the White House, the Republican leader who visited Kyiv and prioritized US support for Ukraine tried to steer the right wing of his party.
But in the end, neither McConnell nor the White House nor Democrats in Congress could make the scaled-down $6 billion military and civilian aid package for Ukraine pass in last week’s deal to avoid a US government shutdown.
Despite overwhelming bipartisan support in Washington for stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression, the failure to approve Ukraine aid was a major setback for an administration seeking to lead an alliance with the West. to protect the young democracy while the fighting continues.
It also shows the dangers in Washington as a hardline group of Republican lawmakers who make up the minority in Congress — many allies of Donald Trump, the party’s 2024 presidential front-runner — bend their power to win over the will of the majority. . The next steps are highly uncertain.
“It worries me,” President Joe Biden acknowledged last week. “But I know there are a majority of members in the House and Senate – both parties – who have said they support funding Ukraine.”
Biden said he was preparing to deliver a major speech on US aid to Ukraine and had a work plan to ensure the flow of aid after an uproar on Capitol Hill, sparked by the ouster of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. .
As Washington reunites, the sudden change unleashes political blame for the inability of the White House and Congress to help the small but growing minority of lawmakers who put aid at risk.
“Not another penny for Ukraine!” wrote by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Greene, a top Trump ally, argues that the money should be spent on securing the US border with Mexico instead.
McConnell, R-Ky., has been trying to build support in Ukraine for months, since he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv in May.
The senator has given repeated floor speeches, held talks with allies abroad and made the case a priority among colleagues on Capitol Hill, where Zelenskyy received a hero’s welcome last year and visited with a following -up appeal weeks before the funding showdown.
But after the White House announced Biden’s $24 billion request for Ukraine aid in August, McConnell knew it wouldn’t have the support needed to pass, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it. .
McConnell met with a group of Republican defense hawks in the Senate before a September deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown, which is usually the time to pass the White House’s spending request for Ukraine.
But GOP senators left McConnell with the understanding that support for Ukraine funding was generally lacking.
A week before the deadline, McConnell told Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in a call Friday that it was “impossible” for Congress to pass the full $24 billion request, the person familiar with the situation said.
Instead, McConnell urged the White House to look “hard” at whether it can rely on sending aid to Ukraine through existing means for transferring or reprogramming money in the short term, the person said.
The White House, in a series of talks with McConnell’s team over the weekend, considered a smaller amount of funding and insisted that Ukraine’s help was essential.
McConnell agreed to do what he could. Days later, the Senate advanced its package to keep the government open for a short period, until Nov. 17, with $6 billion for Ukraine. It passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan votes.
The problem is, however, that Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have never fully articulated Ukraine as a top priority as they resist House Republican demands for steep budget cuts to keep the government open.
And McCarthy, R-Calif., is having his own problems in the Republican-led House.
Greene and other hard-liners in the House essentially pressured McCarthy to remove a smaller amount of Ukraine security assistance funds, $300 million, from an annual defense funding proposal.
This is a clear example of how a growing edge of the party – about 100 Republicans – is wresting control from the majority that broadly supports the bill.
This is a sign of trouble to come.
Staring a potentially devastating government shutdown, the embattled McCarthy then stripped $6 billion in Ukraine aid from the federal funding package ahead of a House vote to keep the US government open.
As the House prepared Saturday to avoid a shutdown, McConnell gathered his Republican senators behind closed doors for a lunch meeting.
McConnell talked about the need to keep Ukraine’s aid in the final package, but it was clear that the room was not his.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the second leader of the Republicans, spoke with McCarthy, including that morning, and understood from the speaker that the package could not pass with the aid of Ukraine attached.
Thune told Republican senators he thought they should move forward with the House version, without Ukraine’s money, as the best way to avoid a shutdown, according to a Republican familiar with the private meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it.
The third-ranking Republican senator, John Barrasso of Wyoming, quickly agreed, according to another Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the conversation.
Listening to his colleagues, McConnell changed course.
McConnell came out after lunch and said Republicans would vote against advancing the bill in the Senate while they wait to see what their colleague does in the House.
That afternoon, the House approved the package hours before the midnight deadline to keep the government open. Ukraine’s aid was dropped.
Missing from the final bill was not only the $6 billion in aid to Ukraine, but also pages of text outlining the ability to transfer funds to Ukraine.
That’s just what McConnell is trying to avoid.
Subsequently, the White House made it clear that McCarthy had made a commitment to Ukraine beyond what was in the package.
But when reporters asked McCarthy about it, the spokesman said there was no “secret dealings” with Biden in Ukraine.
What is there, McCarthy explained, is an assurance that the ability to transfer funds to Ukraine will remain intact. If there was any confusion about that, he said, “We’ll fix it.”
The next day, McCarthy was ousted from office over long-simmering complaints about his leadership, leaving any settlement for Ukraine funding uncertain.
Biden’s speech on Ukraine aid is coming up. The White House is waiting for the House to choose a new speaker. And it is working with Congress to ensure the transfer of funds and to provide new support for Ukraine.
