The new speaker and Ukraine
Byron York
THE NEW SPEAKER AND UKRAINE. The political world is consumed with the fighting going on after Hamas’s attack on Israel. How could the vaunted Israeli intelligence services have been so surprised? How extensive will Israel’s retaliation be? Will the conflict spread?
Those are all important questions, but for Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, the most pressing policy question still concerns another part of the world: How much money should the United States spend supporting Ukraine as it fights Russian invaders?
The question has become more complicated since Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) joined with Democrats to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-FL) from the speakership. The Gaetz gambit, supported by just seven other Republicans, and opposed by 210, came at a critical time for Ukraine aid. The U.S. has spent about $113 billion on aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion last year. Now President Joe Biden, who has vowed to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” wants to send more. McCarthy favored continuing the flow of aid, although not in Biden-sized amounts. But McCarthy is no longer speaker, and a growing number of Republican members are skeptical about the utility and wisdom of continuing Ukraine spending at that level, or perhaps any level.
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Whoever the new speaker is will have to weigh in on that. Much of the media coverage will present a very simple story: Democrats want to support embattled Ukraine, while Republicans want to abandon embattled Ukraine. But the story is not anywhere near that simple, and multiple public opinion polls show why.
The short version is that continued Biden-level support of Ukraine is losing support among all voters. “Support is falling among Americans of both major political parties for supplying Ukraine with weapons,” Reuters reported last week, relying on a new Reuters-Ipsos poll of 1,005 adults. “The two-day poll … showed only 41% of respondents agreed with a statement that Washington ‘should provide weapons to Ukraine,’ compared to 35% who disagreed and the rest unsure.”
More Republicans than Democrats support reducing or ending Ukraine support, but the gap between the parties appears to be narrowing and trending in the direction of less support. From Reuters: “Fifty-two percent of Democrats backed arming Ukraine in the most recent poll, down from 61% in May. Among Republicans, support for sending weapons to Kyiv fell to 35% from 39% in May.” In May, the gap between the two parties was 22 points; today, it is 17 points.
Beyond that, Reuters-Ipsos found that “34% of Democrats in the poll agreed with a statement that Ukraine’s problems ‘are none of our business and we should not interfere.'” Fifty-six percent of Republicans agree with that, also.
In August, a CNN poll found that “55% say the U.S. Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine vs. 45% who say Congress should authorize such funding. And 51% say that the U.S. has already done enough to help Ukraine while 48% say it should do more.”
In June, a Pew Research Center poll found a more partisan situation, with 44% of Republicans saying the U.S. is giving too much aid to Ukraine versus just 14% of Democrats. Most Democrats, about 44%, said the amount of U.S. aid is about right. On the other hand, the strongest Democratic supporters of aid to Ukraine, the Democrats who say the U.S. is not giving enough to Ukraine, has fallen by half, from 38% to 19%, in the 1 1/2 years since the invasion.
Put it all together and, at the very least, there is not strong support for increasing U.S. aid to Ukraine. Yet this is a headline from a Wall Street Journal story this morning: “Congressional Showdown: Can Lawmakers Boost Ukraine Aid by $50 Billion — or Even More?” The paper reported that “pro-Ukraine senators from both parties, unnerved by the upheaval in the House, say they want to move quickly to pass a yearlong aid package for the war-torn country that far exceeds the amount of aid requested by President Biden in August and would last through the 2024 election.” The Wall Street Journal said those senators are “aiming to offer a much bigger and longer-term package” than the one sought by the president, “with a price tag between $50 billion and $100 billion.”
Why do they want to approve aid to last from now “through the 2024 election?” Because they don’t want voters to have a voice in deciding how much U.S. aid goes to Ukraine.
If the polls are correct, it is safe to say that public support would be weak for such a steep increase in Ukraine aid. It would run into opposition not just from Republicans in the House but members of both parties in both houses of Congress. That has nothing to do with turmoil in the House. Rather, it turns on the more fundamental question of how much aid voters believe is appropriate. And right now, there does not appear to be strong, continuing support for the current level of aid to Ukraine.
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