‘Serious and intertwined’: On foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine, McConnell has unlikely allies
Mitch McConnell’s support for a $106 billion emergency foreign aid package to Israel and Ukraine is scrambling traditional partisan alliances in Washington.
The Senate Republican leader’s boosting of the Biden administration’s request is earning support from House Democrats and visceral opposition from Republicans in both congressional chambers.
“I think what Mitch McConnell is aligned with is international law – a commitment to our allies, a defense of freedom and democracy. That’s not a Republican or a Democratic issue. That’s an American value,” Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the former Democratic whip, said in an interview.
But funding military and security exercises thousands of miles away has become an increasingly divisive prospect as newer faces in the GOP embrace a more populist and anti-interventionist posture that’s been championed by former President Donald Trump.
Many Republicans – including Kentucky’s Rand Paul – are predicting the giant funding proposal has no chance of passing the House, and many are calling for support for Israel to be separated from the considerably larger parcel for Ukraine.
On Tuesday, as a Senate committee heard testimony from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the details of the package, McConnell took to the Senate floor to argue that China and Iran’s interests could be emboldened by weakness shown by the West in the two unfolding wars.
“Iran would love to see a Russian victory against Ukraine that divides the West and deepens its own defense cooperation with Moscow. And China, for its part, would love to see America’s resolve – to stand with European and Israeli allies and re-establish actual deterrence against Russia and Iran – crumble,” McConnell said.
He added, “So at the risk of repeating myself: The threats facing America and our allies are serious, and they’re intertwined.”
It was another attempt by McConnell to link America’s own security to the outcomes inside the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.
But House Republicans, now being led by a new speaker, have pitched acting on a single package of $14 billion in aid to Israel, leaving to the wayside the $61 billion both Biden and McConnell want for Ukraine.
Senate Republicans like Florida Sen. Rick Scott – a fierce McConnell nemesis – have taken an identical approach, telling the Kentuckian “it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to Israel in an attempt to get additional aid for Ukraine across the finish line.”
But McConnell has been steadfast in advocating for the larger package that includes Ukraine, appearing with the Ukranian ambassador to the United States in Louisville on Monday.
“Some say our support for Ukraine comes at the expense of more important priorities. But as I say every time I’ve got the chance, this is a false choice,” McConnell said Monday.
“If Russia prevails, there’s no question that [Vladimir] Putin’s appetite for empire will actually extend into NATO, raising the threat to the US trans-Atlantic alliance, and the risk of war for us.”
Some Senate Republicans who identify as part of the GOP’s ultra-conservative MAGA wing are framing the large foreign package as a Democratic priority.
“We shouldn’t just roll over and give Democrats everything they want,” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance told reporters Tuesday.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin described Speaker Mike Johnson – not McConnell – as the leader of the party.
“He’s making some calls, and we in the minority of the Senate ought to follow his lead and not undermine him,” Johnson said.
What’s more, as the death count among Palestinians rises to over 8,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and Israel’s incursion into the strip of land intensifies, pressure for a ceasefire, particularly among young Americans, is heightening.
“My youngest child is 22. Our nation has been at war every day of his life. I think the younger generation is ‘war no more.’ They are losing an appetite for this. They’ve seen $100 billion go to the Ukraine last year, they see billions going abroad and they don’t see a path for themselves to achieve the American dream of home ownership, of a car, of raising their income,” said Rep. Jonathan Jackson, a Illinois Democrat, in an interview.
This story was originally published November 1, 2023 at 4:10 AM with the headline "‘Serious and intertwined’: On foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine, McConnell has unlikely allies."
