Could the GOP Divide Over Ukraine Become a Lasting Split?

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The great hope among many Republicans is that Ron DeSantis will run for president in 2024 as a smarter version of former President Donald Trump. But DeSantis’s stance on the U.S. interest in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proving unfortunate for anyone harboring that hope.

https://www.thebulwark.com/could-the-gop-divide-over-ukraine-become-a-lasting-split/?

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Not all Republicans feel ‘Ukraine fatigue,’ as GOP splits over continued aid

WASHINGTON — As some in the Republican Party call for halting aid to Ukraine, other GOP members of Congress are doubling down on supporting the war-torn nation and even criticizing the Biden administration for not doing enough.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/04/09/not-all-republicans-feel-ukraine-fatigue-as-gop-splits-over-continued-aid/?

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GOP's Ukraine evolution

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Many of the GOP's leading Senate recruits are speaking out against U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia — sounding a downright isolationist note and breaking from the views of party leaders. Why it matters: The emerging Ukraine rhetoric from up-and-coming Republican candidates is a sign of where the party's foreign policy views are headed. Such skepticism of U.S. engagement is still a minority opinion among Republican elected leaders, but it is now embraced by the GOP's top two candidates for president (former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis). Calling for defunding American military aid to Ukraine is becoming something of a litmus test within contested GOP primaries — a far cry from Republicans' instinctive hawkishness in the post-9/11 era. The latest: Trump yesterday called on Republicans in Congress to “refuse to authorize a single additional shipment” of weapons to Ukraine until "the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over" evidence in the House’s Biden family investigation. Zoom out: Former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently returned from Ukraine, was booed at an evangelical event in Iowa — moderated by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — over his support for Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression. Pence, a traditional conservative hawk, now trails entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — who has campaigned on fully ending U.S. support for Ukraine — in FiveThirtyEight's national primary polling average. Driving the news: Former Navy SEAL and businessman Tim Sheehy, the party-backed candidate challenging Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), raised eyebrows in a statement this month in which he called for the U.S. to end its involvement in Ukraine and "compel an immediate peaceful outcome." Between the lines: That's a sharp reversal from Sheehy's position before he jumped in the race. Just last year, Sheehy wrote on his LinkedIn page: "Sweden and Finland are next? We've seen this movie before ... stop him now before the price tag for putting [Russian President Vladimir] Putin down will be a lot higher." Sheehy faces the possibility of a primary challenge against Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), an outspoken isolationist in the House who introduced legislation prohibiting further aid to Ukraine until America's southern border is secured. Go deeper: Sam Brown, the party's favored candidate in the Nevada Senate race, is a decorated military veteran whose injuries in Afghanistan have turned him deeply skeptical of American military engagement abroad. "At a time where there’s so much domestic unease on so many issues, the media and our politicians want to turn our eyes to places like Ukraine or Afghanistan," Brown said during his unsuccessful 2022 Senate campaign. Zoom in: Businessman Bernie Moreno, the fundraising leader in a competitive Ohio Senate primary, also sounded a skeptical note on Ukraine funding in a recent interview with Breitbart News. "We spent [trillions] in the Middle East since 9/11, and what did we get for it? Nothing. Everything is objectively worse. So we can't allow that to happen in Eastern Europe," Moreno said. Moreno was endorsed by Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), one of the Senate's leading critics of Ukraine aid, in a three-way race to take on Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Both Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan — Moreno's primary opponents — have expressed unequivocal support for Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russian aggression. By the numbers: A Pew Research poll in June found 44% of Republican or GOP-leaning voters believe the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine. Just 34% believe it's "about right" or "not enough." That's the highest level of GOP skepticism for Ukraine aid since the war began. The bottom line: Republican leadership is still solidly behind supporting Ukraine — but the party's grassroots are moving in the opposite direction. If that trend continues, expect newly elected Republicans to sound more like Trump and Vance than Pence.

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GOP's Ukraine showdown

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

President Biden's request for $20 billion in additional funding for Ukraine has teed up the first major test of the anti-interventionist sentiment coursing through the GOP — with real-world implications for Kyiv's existential war. Why it matters: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Punchbowl News in June that a supplemental aid package for Ukraine is "not going anywhere" in the House, signaling that extra funding would have to come through an appropriations process already plagued by GOP infighting. What they're saying: "A Republican-led House will not rubber-stamp any blank-check funding requests; rather, the administration's emergency funding requests must be reviewed and scrutinized on their merits consistent with the practice and principles of our majority," a McCarthy spokesperson said in a statement. Driving the news: Biden's request today paired new Ukraine aid with $12 billion for emergency disaster relief and nearly $4 billion for border and migration-related programs. Under the debt ceiling deal negotiated between Biden and McCarthy, the Pentagon's budget cannot exceed $886 billion — a cap that infuriated Republican hawks in the Senate and spurred calls for a supplemental bill. A senior House Republican told Axios that a standalone Ukraine bill would be "an absolute disaster" for Republicans, 89 of whom voted to cut $300 million in aid just last month. By the numbers: A recent CNN poll found 55% of Americans do not believe Congress should authorize more funding for Ukraine, including 71% of Republicans. The record levels of skepticism represent a stark shift from the early days of Russia's invasion, when just 7% of Americans believed the U.S. was providing "too much" support to Ukraine, according to Pew. Former President Trump has called on Republicans to "refuse to authorize a single additional shipment" of weapons to Ukraine until "the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over" evidence in the House's Biden family investigation. The big picture: Ukraine's high-stakes counteroffensive this summer has produced fewer territorial gains than anticipated, darkening the mood in a country that has been under assault for 18 months, the Washington Post reports. The use of U.S.-made cluster munitions has fueled recent breakthroughs in Russian lines, however, and the first batch of Abrams tanks are expected to arrive in Ukraine by early fall. A senior administration official told reporters that existing funding for Ukraine will last through September, and that the supplemental package will "get us through" the first quarter of 2024 if the war is still ongoing. The bottom line: A House vote on Ukraine aid would likely pass with the support of Democrats and Republican hawks. Whether it gets to the floor will depend on McCarthy's appetite for a right-wing uprising.

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Lest we forget

Lessons on appeasement from the World War Two era apply to votes by Tennessee’s congressmen on aid to Ukraine

https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/10/17/lest-we-forget/?

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?? Waning U.S. support for Ukraine

Data: Gallup. Chart: Axios Visuals The share of Americans who say the U.S. is doing "too much" to help Ukraine against Russia jumped to 41% last month — driven by growing opposition among Republicans, Axios' Stef Kight writes from a new Gallup survey. Why it matters: The findings come as new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) plans to bring a vote this week on aid for Israel — decoupling it from Ukraine aid and border funds. What's happening: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has doubled down on his support for Ukraine. Johnson has indicated support for at least some additional aid for Ukraine. ? By the numbers: 62% of Republicans now say the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine — up from 50% in June. 44% of independents say the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine — a jump of 10 points since June. Only 14% of Democrats said the U.S. is doing "too much." Explore the data ...

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Nearly half of Americans think the US is spending too much on Ukraine aid, an AP-NORC poll says

WASHINGTON (AP) — As lawmakers in Washington weigh sending billions more in federal support to Kyiv to help fight off Russian aggression, close to half of the U.S. public thinks the country is spending too much on aid to Ukraine, according to polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-ukraine-russia-congress-white-house-2cd1be27f7f635e9a89fdbdb9eedb646?

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?? Murphy's dire Ukraine warning

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a leading foreign policy voice and supporter of Ukraine's war effort, warned that congressional deadlock on additional aid to Kyiv will soon have an impact on the battlefield.

• "I don't know that Ukraine can survive until February of 2024," Murphy told Politico. "My sense is they start to run short on ammunition in the next several weeks."

Why it matters: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has indicated that he'll hold a standalone vote on Ukraine aid at some point in the future, but opposition from the right flank of the GOP means it's unclear when.

• Senate Republicans — who are far more supportive of funding Ukraine than their House counterparts — are negotiating an aid package with Democrats that they say must include changes to Biden's border policy.
• Thorny immigration issues have created significant roadblocks in those bipartisan talks so far, and the weeks after Thanksgiving recess will be a key test of whether Congress can pass any form of Ukraine aid.

Meanwhile: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News' Benjamin Hall — who was injured in a Russian strike in Ukraine in March 2022 — that he wants to speak with former President Trump.

• Trump has claimed he could end the war in 24 hours but has refused to share details of his proposed "peace plan."
• "Of course, if he has [a] very concrete peace plan, he can share it with me," Zelensky told Hall — while drawing a red line on giving up Ukrainian territory in the east and south. "That is not [a] peace plan."