Welcome to Thursday’s Washington Secrets, where we are World Cup-ready. A team hat is in the mail, and our wall chart is ready to go. In the meantime, we spent yesterday with conservative supporters of Ukraine as they pondered how to push back against pro-Russia voices on the Right. But there are signs that the most prominent of them may be losing influence.
Tucker Carlson is losing his grip on the Republican Party, according to a new survey of GOP primary voters.
Conservative supporters of Ukraine are celebrating the results as they try to work out how to combat the influence of a small but influential coterie of pro-Russia voices.
Carlson, who famously went into fanboy mode during a 2024 visit to Moscow and served up softballs in an interview with Vladimir Putin, is target No. 1. Yet his influence appears to be cratering.
A Public Opinion Strategies Poll found that 37% of respondents had a negative view of the former Fox News host, up from 19% in October. Only 41% said they had a favorable view of a man who could once claim to be the most influential conservative broadcaster in the country, a drop of 14 points.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” said Steven Moore, founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project, which commissioned the poll. “Just wanted to leave you with that little bit of good news.”
He was speaking at “The Russia Reality” briefing on Wednesday, a stone’s throw from the White House.
Academics, diplomats, military analysts, and former Trump administration officials — including former Special Envoy Keith Kellogg — gathered to discuss how to best use conservative arguments to win over a lobby opposed to backing Ukraine in its war with Russia.
KEITH KELLOGG: US SHOULD NOT BE OKAY WITH UKRAINE GIVING UP LAND TO RUSSIA
Think Vice President J.D. Vance berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not being grateful enough for American aid. Or Candace Owens, who questions the sovereignty of Ukraine. Or Curtis Yarvin (who attended the event), who fantasizes about a Putin-controlled Ukraine becoming the jewel in a post-liberal Europe.
“This is a briefing for Americans who understand that the world is getting more dangerous, that our enemies are getting more aligned, and that the cost of confusion is rising,” said Meaghan Mobbs of the Independent Women’s Forum, which organized the event.
Russia was not just a problem in Europe, she said. It was a U.S. national security issue.
“It exploits our divisions. It studies our weakness,” Mobbs said. “It bets that Americans are too tired, too distracted, or too cynical to tell the truth about what we are facing.”
Carlson has held up Moscow as a protector of traditional values against decadent Western trends. In his interview with Putin, he praised the Russian strongman as a Christian leader.
Not so fast, said panelists at the event.
“There are no Catholic priests left in all of Russian-occupied Ukraine,” said Sarah Makin, the president’s first-term senior adviser on international religious freedom. “They have either run them all out or tortured them or killed them.”
She said 700 religious sites had been destroyed, including more than 450 Baptist sites. The denomination had been singled out for perceived links to the West.
“My faith comes before anything else,” Makin said. “I will follow what my God tells me to do, before even what my country will tell me to do. That is terrifying for an authoritarian dictator like Putin.”
Alongside her, Charmaine Yoest, executive director of the House Values Action team, described how at least 20,000 children had been abducted by Russian forces in Ukraine. And the true number could be in the hundreds of thousands. She said it was a classic move by an authoritarian leader.
“They know that there are things that hurt you more than death, that you fear more than death,” Yoest said. “And what is the No. 1 thing that is the top of that list? It’s your children.”
In the Ukraine Freedom Project poll of 744 Republican primary voters, 62% of respondents said knowing the scale of abductions in Ukraine made them more likely to back sending military aid to the country.
It was beaten only by the 65% who said they were more likely to support sending weapons when told Russia was sending drones to Iran to fight American personnel.
“A regime that kidnaps children is not defending family values,” said Mobbs, as she closed out the event. “A regime that persecutes Christians is not a guardian of faith, and a regime that aligns with Iran and threatens the West is not a conservative beacon. It is a menace, and we should have the courage to say so.”
Secrets wondered whether Yarvin was convinced by the arguments, but he had left before the end.
A new Ukrainian strongman?
The day had an extraordinary mix of participants. There were the usual ambassadors and retired diplomats, thinktankers and activists. Plus Kash Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins (singing the national anthem and then describing how bots linked to Russian state broadcasters peddled lies about her), and the world’s undisputed heavyweight boxing champion.
Two weeks after defending his crown at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Oleksandr Usyk talked about faith, family, and growing up in Ukraine.
He revealed that Russian forces booby-trapped his house in Vorzel in 2022 when they came close to overrunning Kyiv.
And he set off squeals of excitement when he hinted at a possible political future.
“I don’t want to make political comments here,” he said, “because thank God I’m not in politics … yet.”
However, he quickly played down the idea that the “yet” meant he was trailing a campaign, much to the disappointment of several in the audience at Decatur House.
Lunchtime reading
Trump once played soccer: The World Cup kicks off today, giving Matt Viser a chance to give us the rundown on the president’s relationship with the beautiful game.
Jared Kushner’s $5 billion Albanian reality check: “Thousands of protesters have been marching daily, a special prosecutor has opened an investigation into land sales, and even the European Union’s executive arm has voiced concerns to Albania about the project, sparking worries it could imperil the country’s bid to join the bloc.”
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