House Speaker Kevin McCarthy threw conservative media outlets into disarray on Tuesday, with many suggesting Representative Adam Schiff should be removed from Congress.
McCarthy’s comments came in response to a reporter asking what accountability looks like following the release of the Durham Report.
Durham’s report, details of which were released earlier this week, found that the FBI did not have enough “factual evidence” to investigate allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and revealed that they and the Department of Justice “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law.”
“You have pledged, if the GOP takes the majority in the House, that you would investigate the findings of the Durham investigation. Now that the report has been released, what does accountability look like?” a reporter asked.
McCarthy replied that House Republicans are looking to have Durham testify “so we can look at it more” and made the following comments about Democrat Adam Schiff:
“You remember when he told the American people he had proof? Remember when he told him he didn’t know the whistleblower and what he put America through and openly lied to us? And now it’s proven in this as well,” he continued.
“It raises a lot of questions about his character, his standing inside of Congress, or whether he should even be in Congress.”
.@SpeakerMcCarthy calls out Adam Schiff after the Durham Report: “Remember when he told the American people he had proof? … openly lied to us?
“It raises a lot of questions about his character, his standing inside of Congress, or whether he should even be in Congress.” pic.twitter.com/8T5HtnBPav
Apologies for being a Debbie Downer here, but does anyone in their right mind think Kevin McCarthy has the intestinal fortitude to expel Adam Schiff from Congress? Or that he could whip up the two-thirds necessary to do so?
Even in the above video clip alone, there is some hedging.
Why does anybody have to “look at it more” with Durham’s testimony as McCarthy states, even as the report itself has “proven” Schiff “openly lied”?
The report has been released to the public. His lies have been on record for years. His leaks have been readily transparent during that time. We’ve all seen it. It is “proven,” as McCarthy states.
Wow! Harsh language – you’re such a tough guy, Kev.
Representative Schiff (D-CA) had repeatedly stated for years through friendly media outlets that there was “direct evidence” of collusion.
“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,” Schiff said during a CBS interview in March of 2019.
Direct evidence. He knew there was no such thing but he fed it to the media regardless.
Schiff would also claim that he had “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion. He still hasn’t shown that alleged evidence.
Back in 2020, The Political Insider reported on transcripts of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe showing Obama officials testifying time and again that they had no evidence of collusion.
Now, according to Durham, “The FBI had no information in its holding indicating that any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials.”
But don’t you worry, the Speaker of the House and his fellow Republicans are going to “look at it more.”
And to show he’s super-serious about holding Schiff accountable, McCarthy has issued a strongly worded … tweet. A tweet showing a letter from the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government inviting Durham to testify next week.
“If you’re concerned about threats to our democracy, you are right to be angry over the coordinated campaign to lie to the American public for years about Russia collusion—peddled at the highest levels of government, from Adam Schiff to the DOJ—to try to influence an election,” McCarthy wrote.
“This is why Republicans created a @Weaponization Committee—to get to the bottom of this abuse of power and bring accountability.”
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHO ARE YOU IMPEACHING? FOR GOD’S SAKE DO SOMETHING BESIDES WRITE LETTERS!!!
— Larry Schweikart (@LarrySchweikart) May 16, 2023
If You Can Dodge a Wrench, You Can Dodge Accountability
It would appear Kevin McCarthy’s big plan to deal with one of the biggest peddlers of Russian collusion misinformation – misinformation that would dog President Trump for years and undermine the entirety of his administration – is to have Durham testify about his already published report, hold committee hearings, tweet about them, and of course, “look at it more.”
Willing to bet he’ll even send out some fundraising emails. That’ll put Schiff in his place.
In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, McCarthy continued to dodge on what accountability looks like.
“Will there be accountability here?” she asked.
“There has to be,” McCarthy replied, but failing to note what form that would take.
“Maria, it’s not just me who knew. You knew it. And you got criticized for speaking the truth. And that’s what’s wrong. Is CNN talking about this? Is the White House talking about this?”
Kevin McCarthy:
“They took America through an impeachment, over a lie that they knew.
You had Adam Schiff who Chairman of the Intel committee, lying day after day to the American public, that he had proof…when you look at Hillary Clinton, she created this.” pic.twitter.com/HSqHdL7Jcj
— Hank (R) Deplorable (@DeplorableHank1) May 17, 2023
Why would they talk about it? They know Republicans will kick the can down the road with letters and hearings but with ultimately nobody being held accountable for their actions.
“Why is this individual still in Congress?” McCarthy asked, seemingly unaware that he, as Speaker of the House, is obviously the most powerful person in a position to do something about it.
Do you know who might want to look into that? Somebody with the ability to call into action Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution which states “each House may … punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”
Prove you mean what you say, Speaker McCarthy. Call a vote. Even if it fails … do something. Force the media to talk about the vote, to talk about Schiff’s lies.
Oh, and as luck would have it, Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) on Wednesday introduced a resolution to have Schiff expelled from Congress.
Schiff lied to the American people. He used his position on House Intel to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars.
“The Durham Report makes clear that the Russian Collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country,” Paulina said in a statement.
She added that Schiff “is a dishonor to the House of Representatives.”
Paulina is taking appropriate action. Will McCarthy back her up?
To his credit, the Speaker did remove Schiff from the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year for leaking classified information in order to propagate the Russia collusion hoax.
“Schiff has lied to the American public,” he succinctly stated.
Now he’s got even more proof. Perhaps we’ve moved past the ‘let’s look into it more’ phase, Mr. Speaker.
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is ending her long leadership tenure with a historic flourish, wrapping up two decades at the top of the party with a string of major victories — political, legislative and diplomatic — that are putting a remarkable cap on a landmark era.
This week alone, House Democrats have released the tax records of former President Trump following a years-long legal battle.
They wrapped up their marathon investigation into last year’s Capitol attack, complete with criminal referrals for Trump.
And they’re poised to pass a massive, $1.7 trillion federal spending bill packed full of Democratic priorities, including legislation designed to ensure the peaceful transfer of power between presidents — a push that came in direct response to the rampage of Jan. 6, 2021.
Those were just the expected developments.
Congress on Wednesday also played host to a history-making address by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, after his surprise visit to Washington — a stunning demonstration designed to shore up U.S. support for Kyiv amid Russia’s long-running invasion.
Any one of those items, on its own, would have been a significant triumph in a brief lame-duck session following midterm elections that will put Republicans in charge of the lower chamber next year.
The combination is something else entirely, constituting an extraordinary — and highly consequential — string of wins for Pelosi and the Democrats just weeks before she steps out of power after 20 years and passes the torch to a younger generation of party leaders.
“The 117th Congress has been one of the most consequential in recent history,” she wrote to fellow Democrats this week, taking a victory lap. She added that the lame-duck agenda has them leaving on “a strong note.”
Zelensky’s visit, in particular, carried outsize significance.
The Ukrainian president has, since the Russian invasion began in February, emerged as the global symbol of democratic defiance in the face of the violent authoritarianism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And having him on hand in the Capitol — itself the target of an anti-democratic mob last year — gave a big boost to the warnings from Democrats that America’s election systems and other democratic institutions are under attack, not least from Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Pelosi, who had staged a surprise trip to Ukraine earlier in the year, found a special importance in Zelensky’s visit, noting that her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a House member in 1941 when Winston Churchill addressed Congress to urge America’s support in the fight against the tyrannical forces of Nazi Germany.
“Eighty-one years later this week, it is particularly poignant for me to be present when another heroic leader addresses the Congress in a time of war – and with Democracy itself on the line,” Pelosi said in announcing Zelensky’s visit this week.
Zelensky’s presence also gave a boost to the Biden administration’s efforts to provide Ukraine with assistance — military, economic and humanitarian — in the face of opposition from conservatives on Capitol Hill who want to cut off the spigot of U.S. aid when Republicans take over the House next year.
Hours before Zelensky’s speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a conservative firebrand, said U.S. taxpayers are being “raped” by lawmakers who provide billions of dollars in foreign aid.
“Of course the shadow president has to come to Congress and explain why he needs billions of American’s taxpayer dollars for the 51st state, Ukraine,” she tweeted, referring to Zelensky. “This is absurd. Put America First!!!”
Democrats, joined by many Republicans, have countered with promises to continue providing Kyiv with the support it needs to win the conflict. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday that it’s meaningless to praise the Ukrainians' courage without backing those words with funding.
“Some of you asked me, ‘Well, how much would we do?’ And my response has been, ‘As much as we need to do.’ That's my limit,” Hoyer told reporters. “This is a fight for freedom — [a] fight for a world order of law and justice.”
The issue of Ukraine aid could prove to be a headache for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who’s vying to become Speaker next year and needs the support of conservatives — including those opposed to more Kyiv funding — to achieve that goal.
Despite the hurdles, Pelosi said she’s confident that Congress will come together to support Kyiv next year, even with a GOP-controlled House.
“I think there's very strong bipartisan support respecting the courage of the people of Ukraine to fight for their democracy,” she told reporters earlier in the month.
Pelosi, of course, had solidified her place in the country’s history books long before this Congress — when Democrats adopted massive bills to fund infrastructure, battle COVID-19 and tackle climate change — and the lame-duck session, when that list of policy wins is growing longer still.
As a back-bencher in 1991, Pelosi had visited Tiananmen Square, launching her image as a pro-democracy activist, both in Congress and on the world stage. And her profile rose again in 2002, with her firm opposition to the Iraq War.
Years later, in 2007, she became the first female Speaker in U.S. history, a feat she repeated again in 2019. She was Speaker during the Great Recession; ushered in the Dodd-Frank law designed to curb the worst abuses of Wall Street; and battled Trump head-on, launching two impeachments of the 45th president and creating the special committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
That panel reached the end of its investigation this week, issuing a summary of its findings on Monday that included recommendations that the Justice Department further investigate Trump for four separate federal crimes, including inciting an insurrection. The final report is expected to be released on Thursday.
“Our Founders made clear that, in the United States of America, no one is above the law,” Pelosi said in response. “This bedrock principle remains unequivocally true, and justice must be done.”
Perhaps recognizing that her leadership days were numbered, Pelosi also went out of her way this year to boost her legacy by visiting some particularly volatile spots around the globe. That list included Ukraine, amid the war with Russia; Taiwan, in the face of retaliatory threats from China; and most recently Armenia, where she took clear sides in a long-standing conflict with Azerbaijan.
Yet in Pelosi’s own view, her legacy will be defined by a law she helped to enact long before Russia invaded Ukraine or Trump entered the political stage: The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, is how she wants to be remembered.
“Nothing in any of the years that I was there compares to the Affordable Care Act, expanding health care to tens of millions more Americans,” she told reporters last week. “That for me was the highlight.”
A growing number of Republican lawmakers are criticizing President Biden for freeing a Russian arms dealer to secure WNBA star Brittney Griner’s release, and for failing to free former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan in the deal.
The administration had also sought the release of Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 on spying charges that he vehemently denies, but Biden on Thursday said Moscow is “treating Paul’s case different than Brittney’s.”
Republicans quickly issued statements expressing relief at Griner's release while condemning the president for snubbing Whelan. Many of the GOP lawmakers also expressed worry the deal would incentivize Moscow to imprison Americans in the future for leverage.
"The Biden administration has allowed Viktor Bout, a dangerous arms dealer who was convicted of conspiring to kill American law enforcement, to walk free,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, said in a statement.
“This move to appease Vladimir Putin will only encourage further hostage taking by Russian security forces. While I welcome the release of Brittney Griner, I cannot help but think about Paul Whelan — as he has apparently been abandoned by the Biden administration,” Rogers added.
Biden said on Thursday his administration will "never give up” on securing Whelan's release.
Bout was serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, kill U.S. employees, transfer and use of anti-aircraft missiles and support of a designated terrorist organization.
He has been accused of running massive arms shipments to sanctioned regimes in African and Middle Eastern countries, earning him the nicknames “Merchant of Death” and “Sanctions Buster.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who introduced impeachment articles against Biden last year, said the swap marks another reason to push for his removal from office.
“Biden just returned the ‘Merchant of Death,’ an international arms dealer convicted of conspiring to kill Americans, to Putin and left former Marine Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained for over four years, to rot in a Russian prison,” wrote Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House.
“Biden's now aiding both sides of the war,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who will succeed Banks in the role, wrote in a retweet of Banks’s post.
Whelan himself spoke with CNN on Thursday from Russia, saying he was happy that Griner was released but adding he felt "greatly disappointed" that more had not been done to secure his freedom.
“My prayers are with Brittney Griner and her family as they heal from this,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wrote on Twitter. "I hope Brittney continues to use her platform to keep the pressure to bring former Marine Paul Whelan home. Leaving Paul in Russia to Putin's whim would be a disgraceful abdication of Biden's leadership.”
Scott's home-state colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), tweeted, “It is a bitter pill to swallow that Mr. Whelan remains in custody while we release the ‘Merchant of Death’ Viktor Bout back to Russia.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed relief at Griner’s release while criticizing the continued detainment of Whelan and Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained in Russia for allegedly possessing 17 grams of medical marijuana in violation of Russian law.
“Unfortunately, the Biden Administration’s handling of this situation leaves behind other Americans, like veteran Marine Paul Whalen and teacher Marc Fogel,” Rubio wrote.
“What’s more, Putin and others have seen how detaining high-profile Americans on relatively minor charges can both distract American officials and cause them to release truly bad individuals who belong behind bars.”
“I’ve got something I’d like to say.” That’s what I usually offer up as a preamble, as I try to get the attention of my kids and other family members gathered around the Thanksgiving table. It usually takes a couple of attempts, but once we’re all on the same page, I offer words of thanks for my ancestors. I talk about how brave they must have been to leave the communities of their birth—which were at least familiar, despite the hardship, discrimination, and all-too-common violence they faced—and come to a land where they didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the culture, and, in many cases, didn’t know a soul.
In this offering, I mention the family names of the people who came and the places they came from. We’ve done quite a bit of genealogical research—on my side and my wife’s side of the family—and are lucky to have as much information as we do. My goal is to give my kids a sense of who their ancestors were, and what they went through to give us a chance to have the life we do here in America. One branch of my father’s family came from Vilnius, now the capital of Lithuania; another from Riga, Latvia’s capital; another from Minsk, the capital of Belarus; and the last from Odesa, now in Ukraine—a country fighting back with growing success against Putin’s vile aggression.
Growing up, I had learned that all my father’s ancestors were “Russian.” It turns out none of them came from places that are now in that country—and let’s hope its borders don’t expand any further.
The story is similar on my mother’s side. One branch was described to me as Austrian; in fact, they came from Skole in today’s Ukraine. The other was Hungarian, and came from Sighet (Elie Wiesel’s hometown) in Transylvania, now a province of Romania. During my Thanksgiving meal talk, I also thank my wife’s family, who came from Vienna, Poland, and Russia. In reality, the primary point of identification in terms of culture and identity for all these people was not the country of origin on their passport, but the fact that they were members of the Jewish people, irrespective of any particular level of belief or religiosity.
In addition to being Jews, the family ancestors I’ll be acknowledging were also, of course, Americans. And that’s the other part of the thanks I’ll give on the holiday. I’m thankful that my ancestors had a place to go, that they could become Americans and make a life here.
The last of them got in just under the wire, arriving a few months after the First World War and only a couple of years before a series of immigration “reforms” severely limited the number of immigrants our country accepted from outside the British Isles and northwest Europe. My wife’s grandmother’s family got out of Poland in 1937—and only because the youngest child had been born here (it’s a long story); one of the oldest living “anchor babies,” I’d surmise. Very few Jews were able to find refuge here at that point and immediately afterward—during the years when they needed it most.
I make sure my kids know about these restrictions on immigration, as well as the fact that people coming from Asia had almost no chance to emigrate and become U.S. citizens until the early 1950s. We also talk about how—although their ancestors and other Jewish immigrants certainly didn’t have it easy—they at least had opportunities that America denied to the large numbers of African Americans and American Indians who had arrived long before our family. America didn’t treat everyone living here equally, either on paper or in practice. Certainly, as the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Patrick Lyoya, and too many others have reminded us, we’ve still got room for improvement on that front as well, to say the least—although we have come a long way thanks to those heroes who fought and bled to get us as far as we have come.
Over the course of four long years, the twice-impeached former guy made the process for coming here far more difficult, far more treacherous, for refugees and asylum-seekers. But thankfully, The Man Who Lost An Election And Tried To Steal It was unsuccessful in that endeavor, and we now have a far more humane president—one who led the Democratic Party to its best midterm performance in six decades. These are developments for which my family and I are deeply thankful, for many reasons.
Contrast Trump with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) of Pennsylvania, who, for more than a decade, have organized a Thanksgiving event in Philadelphia specifically for immigrants. Over 100 people shared the holiday meal in 2019:
Vanessa, who declined to give her last name, says the event is exactly what she and her family needed after being under the threat of deportation.
"We couldn’t miss it today, because recently my parents were in deportation court," she said.
Vanessa says she's thankful her family can stay together just in time for the holiday.
If that organization sounds familiar, it might be because of the wonderful work it does on behalf of immigrants, or it might be because the terrorist who killed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh specifically mentioned HIAS in a post just a few hours before committing that mass murder:
A couple of hours before opening fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, Robert Bowers, the suspected gunman, posted on the social network Gab, “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and Bowers had posted about it at least once before. Two and a half weeks earlier, he had linked to a HIAS project called National Refugee Shabbat and written, “Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us?” Another post that most likely referred to HIAS read, “Open you Eyes! It’s the filthy EVIL jews Bringing the Filthy EVIL Muslims into the Country!!”
So while I’m thankful to our country for taking in my family, and so many others, I am aware that not everyone approves of America’s generosity, or the support Jews have generally shown for it. There’s another person, whose family is also Jewish and from Eastern Europe, who expressed a sense of gratitude that reminded me of my own. This person did so in the context of coming forward to testify in an impeachment inquiry focused on Donald Trump. He has faced antisemitism from the Tangerine Palpatine and his allies in retaliation for stepping forward and telling the truth. Here are the words of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, words that make me proud to share my heritage with this man:
Next month will mark 40 years since my family arrived in the United States as refugees. When my father was 47 years old he left behind his entire life and the only home he had ever known to start over in the United States so that his three sons could have better, safer lives. His courageous decision inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothers and myself and instilled in us a sense of duty and service. All three of us have served or are currently serving in the military. Our collective military service is a special part of our family’s story in America.
I also recognize that my simple act of appearing here today, just like the courage of my colleagues who have also truthfully testified before this Committee, would not be tolerated in many places around the world. In Russia, my act of expressing my concerns to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions and offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life. I am grateful for my father’s brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free of fear for mine and my family’s safety.
Dad, my sitting here today in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.
Thanksgiving—at least in the form we celebrate in this country—is an American invention, and also a holiday about each of our relationships to America and to our fellow Americans. It means different things to different people, depending on how their ancestors were treated. For me, America is my home, the only one I’ve got. It is the place that made my life and my family possible. My membership in the American people, the diverse yet singular American national community, is central to my identity.
We are living in a time when, once again, demagogues are playing on our deepest fears to argue against taking in people fleeing oppression in their homelands, just as was the case in 1939. Demagogues are also casting doubt on the loyalty of Jewish Americans who were born elsewhere, just as was the case in the Dreyfus Affair over a century ago. Antisemitism is on the rise from across the political and ideological spectrum—although the most dangerous anti-Jewish hatred comes from the right wing.
I am truly grateful for what America did for me—taking in my ancestors when they needed a place to go. I know many others will end up being far less fortunate. They are the ones we have to fight for now.
America’s allies in Europe breathed a sigh of relief as the U.S. midterm contests come to a close. U.S. allies believe slimmer margins of control between Democrats and Republicans in Congress will not jeopardize American support to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
From Kyiv to Berlin and Tbilisi, Georgia, fears that a larger Republican majority would move the U.S. back into the isolationist mindset of the Trump presidency were squashed. But the international community will be closely watching what a likely divided government means for President Biden’s leadership role among allies.
But even amid European relief, a group of Republicans largely backed by former President Trump still put the fate of U.S. support to Ukraine increasingly under strain.
The United States is the largest supplier of military and economic assistance to Ukraine, and Europeans are bracing for a potential Trump comeback after the former president teased announcing a 2024 run.
“I think there's kind of a bit of a relief, especially in Europe … that the march of MAGA Republicanism, Trumpism seems to have stopped in its tracks a bit,” said Matthias Matthijs, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That’s at least the interpretation here. That this is not a foregone conclusion that 2024 will result in some sort of isolationist presidency again.”
Khatia Dekanoidze, an opposition lawmaker from Georgia, told The Hill that the Georgian public are “interested in who will be winning in the House and who will be running the Senate and what the balance is, what would be decided regarding Ukrainian support.”
“Also it’s very interesting from the people’s perspective, will Trump be back? It’s a very common question,” she added.
Yevgen Korniychuck, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, told The Hill that Kyiv is watching closely the “minority of pro-Trump” Republicans, raising concern that “they are not really happy with support of Ukraine.”
“But the full majority will be in support, I’m sure. This is the most important for us,” he said.
Europeans are also paying close attention to the presidential aspirations of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has increasingly come under attacks from Trump, signaling his outsized influence in the GOP.
“Ron DeSantis has arrived as a name in the German press,” said Peter Rough, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute with a focus on Europe.
“[The Germans] say Ron DeSantis may be even more dangerous than Trump because he can actually implement and execute his policies, unlike DJT [Donald J. Trump]. ‘Trump but with a brain,’ they said last night on the [German] prime-time talk show I was on.”
Europeans welcomed Biden's focus on improving the transatlantic relationship that was made a target by Trump, who threatened to pull out of NATO, antagonized leaders in Germany and France and embraced far-right outliers like Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán.
“There’s no question that folks in Europe do wonder what’s going to happen in 2024,” said Marjorie Chorlins, senior vice president for Europe at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They do see the more hawkish, less pro-transatlantic rhetoric that came out of the last administration as a problem and that there’s a risk that’s going to come back.”
Chorlins said that Europeans welcome closer cooperation with the U.S., and are looking to leverage the unity Biden rallied in support for Ukraine — coordinating sanctions against Moscow and pooling military and economic assistance for Kyiv — to address other aspects of the American relationship with the European Union.
“The question is whether we can leverage the unity that we found around Ukraine and Russia, and take that energy and apply it in other ways,” she said.
Biden, in a post-midterm-election press conference on Wednesday, said that the “vast majority” of allies are looking to cooperate when asked how other world leaders should view this moment for the U.S., with Trump teasing another presidential run.
Biden furtherwarned against isolationism that Trump had embraced.
“What I find is that they want to know: Is the United States stable? Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy we've always been?” the president said. “Because, look, the rest of the world looks to us. … If the United States tomorrow were to, quote, ‘withdraw from the world,’ a lot of things would change around the world.”
Emily Horne, former National Security Council spokesperson and special assistant to Biden, called the midterm elections the dog that didn’t bark for European allies and partners.
“There’s some temporary relief now, but not on the bigger question of 2024 and whether Trump or someone like him could come back and derail so much of the progress that we have been able to make together with Europe, not just on Ukraine, but on everything from getting COVID under control to preparing for future pandemics to tackling climate change,” said Horne, founder of Allegro Public Affairs.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who could become the next House Speaker, raised eyebrows last month when he said Republicans would scrutinize aid to Ukraine if they have a majority, comments he has since tried to defend as oversight rather than a lack of support for Ukraine.
Biden on Wednesday said he is optimistic that funding and bipartisan support for Ukraine would continue, adding that he would be surprised if there’s a majority of Republicans who are unwilling to help.
Horne argued that it would be a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin if a Republican-led House puts a halt to the flow of munitions to Ukrainians. She added that while McCarthy knows the consequences of such a move, it comes down to the others in his camp.
“The question is, can he control the actors in his caucus that care more about their Twitter sound bites than doing the right thing by both U.S. security interests in Europe and the Ukrainian people?” Horne said.
But, she added, there is an understanding among allies that “there are individuals who get a lot of airtime who actually have very little sway over what’s in the policy that goes forward for the president's signature.”
Allies worry about other aspects of a Republican majority in Congress and how it could impact Biden’s overall focus on the war in Ukraine and foreign policy issues like climate and China.
With a potential Republican majority in the House, there is a concern among Europeans that GOP-led investigations into Biden could distract him from international affairs, Matthijs said.
“There is worry in Europe that Biden will now be distracted by a House that will make his life miserable. That all we’re going to hear about is Hunter Biden’s laptop and these kinds of fake impeachment proceedings against the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, Tony Fauci, you name it,” he said.
But, he said that Europeans feel “slightly better” about the U.S. overall after the midterm elections.
“It doesn't mean much will change right away because of this election, but at least it's a very helpful reminder, I think, to a lot of people in Europe that the U.S. is capable of self-correction when it goes too much in one direction,” he said.
Former National Security Counsel director Fiona Hill became a household name during her deposition for Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Her fearless, straightforward, no-nonsense testimony on both Trump’s actions and diplomatic issues has made Hill one of the nation’s most respected experts on international relations, especially when it comes to all things Russia. Now, in a new interview with Politico, Hill is bringing equally blunt about what’s happening in Eastern Europe.
“This is a great power conflict, “ said Hill. “The third great power conflict in the European space in a little over a century. It’s the end of the existing world order. Our world is not going to be the same as it was before.”
The article itself is hidden behind a clickbait headline about Elon Musk, but while Hill does have something to say about the appeal of Putin to guys like Musk or Trump (“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin.”), the more important message is that the battle going on in Ukraine isn’t a fight about who will control Crimea. It’s about who will own the future.
It was during that deposition for Trump’s first impeachment that Hill called Trump’s blackmail call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “really kind of my worst fears and nightmares” in terms of an “effort not just to subvert the national security process but to try to subvert what really should be a diplomatic effort.”
Hill’s insightful, informed discussion of the issues, and her explanation of how Russia and Ukraine both saw Trump’s efforts to manipulate the situation for his own benefit, made her a standout witness. In later interviews, Hill explained how she warned Trump that Vladimir Putin actually wants to use nuclear weapons and that Russia’s threats to Ukraine couldn’t be ignored, but needed to be met with a “major international response.”
This time, what Hill has to say isn’t all about Putin’s ability to manipulate men who are easily bullied, but about how Putin himself has defined the illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in a way that means the U.S., NATO, and the world can’t afford to step back.
As she points out, a hallmark of Putin is that when something he does turns out to be a failure, he doesn’t step away. He doubles down. “[Putin] always takes the more extreme step in his range of options,” said Hill, “the one that actually cuts off other alternatives. Putin has often related an experience he had as a kid, when he trapped a rat in a corner in the apartment building he lived in, in Leningrad, and the rat shocked him by jumping out and fighting back.” It says something that Putin identifies with that rat.
The Russian dictator insists on fighting even when, as in this case, “he’s also the person who puts himself in the corner.” In spite of extraordinarily high casualties (Hill notes that some estimates now show Russian losses at over 90,000), Putin isn’t taking steps to reduce future casualties. Instead he’s throwing more bodies at the situation. Russia ran through many of it’s best trained, best equipped forces in the opening weeks of the war. Now it is mobilizing untrained men, most of them out of shape, many of them elderly or ill, and forcing them to the front with only the slightest nod toward training. The families of some of those who were “recruited” following Putin’s big mobilization speech have already received death notices.
For Hill, Putin has launched himself into a no-win situation, but he’s unwilling, or even incapable, of stepping away. His only end game is one in which he leaves on his own terms. Putin doesn’t just want to win the war, he wants to crush Ukraine. To “cow” people into submission, erase their culture, obliterate their boundaries into “Novorossiya,” and “remove Ukraine from the map and from global affairs.” And just because what’s happening in Ukraine doesn’t fit the image people have for a World War III—one dominated by an exchange of strategic nuclear weapons—that doesn’t mean what’s happening is any more dismissible than the events that generated past world wars.
“We’re having a hard time coming to terms with what we’re dealing with here,” said Hill. “This is a great power conflict, the third great power conflict in the European space in a little over a century. It’s the end of the existing world order. Our world is not going to be the same as it was before.”
Putin doesn’t accept the boundaries of the world as they are now drawn. He’s willing to drag the world into food shortage and an economic crisis, and he’s willing to at least threaten nuclear war to see that the boundaries are redrawn in his favor. These actions and desires are indistinguishable from those that drove World War I and World War II. Just like the men who kicked off those wars, Putin expected things to go easily and in his favor.
“I’m sure Putin thought he would have been unassailable with a quick, victorious war,” said Hill. “Ukraine would be back in the fold, and then probably after that, Belarus. Moldova as well, perhaps. There would have been a reframing of the next phase of Putin as the great czar of a reconstituted ‘Russkiy mir’ or ‘Russian world.’”
Only that didn’t happen. But it still could, if the U.S. and other allies falter in their support of Ukraine.
Hill: This goes back to the point I tried to make when I testified at the first impeachment trial against President Trump. There’s a direct line between that episode and now. Putin has managed to seed hostile sentiment toward Ukraine. Even if people think they are criticizing Ukraine for their own domestic political purposes, because they want to claim that the Biden administration is giving too much support for Ukraine instead of giving more support to Americans, etc. — they’re replaying the targeted messaging that Vladimir Putin has very carefully fed into our political arena. People may think that they’re acting independently, but they are echoing the Kremlin’s propaganda.
Meanwhile in Russia: anger and disappointment fill the studio, as the viewers are being prepared for the loss of Kherson and other territories. Host Olga Skabeeva bitterly questions why Russia was so wrong in the beginning, believing that Zelensky would run & NATO wouldn't help. pic.twitter.com/sQpxokXDSv
If accurate, this would be less than a quarter of the pre-war population. (Note: “right bank” in this case means on the right when looking downstream, so the west bank of the Dnipro River at Kherson is also the right bank.)
About 50-60 thousand residents of the right bank of the Kherson region are planned to be transported to the left bank of the Dnieper, it will take about a week, Acting Governor Saldo said on the air of Solovyov Live pic.twitter.com/jJm4qCvu3r
🧵/ link in the last tweet. Together with @cxemu and @KOvsianyi we found a photo and a video of a Russian soldiers and equipment being evacuated from the right bank of Dnipro river to Nova Kakhovka by ferry. Ferries go unloaded to the right bank at least since Oct. 8th. pic.twitter.com/RU5owo3MyP
Unclear how this relates to everything else going on, but if collaborators and Russian officials are loading onto those boats, the control of the occupation government may already be breaking down—particularly if the panic level is high.
Elon Musk continued pressing for peaceful negotiations to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict and avert global nuclear war, while RussiaGate figure and star witness in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Fiona Hill, accused him of transmitting messages for Vladimir Putin.
The Tesla CEO took to Twitter Monday to share a Newsweek op-ed that argued “neocons and the woke left” are leading us into “Woke War III.”
The column, written by David Sacks, pointed out that Musk had found himself in hot water for daring to propose a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine that included concessions on both sides – in an effort to avoid nuclear war and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of humans perishing as a result.
For his troubles, Musk was immediately branded a Putin sympathizer, as has become common in recent years.
Ukraine-Russia Peace:
– Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.
– Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).
Fiona Hill, who featured heavily in RussiaGate and the first impeachment of Trump, accused Musk of “transmitting a message” on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In particular, she noted the mention of water supplies.
“It’s unlikely Elon Musk knows about this himself,” she said in an interview with Politico. “The reference to water is so specific that this clearly is a message from Putin.”
Or, you know, he simply googled Crimea and read various reports on the key role the water supply has in the Russia-Ukraine conflict dating back to 2021. It’s not as if the water crisis in the area was super-secret.
But of course, facts don’t matter when it comes to accusing people of being secret Russian agents.
“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin”
Hill continued to expand on her theory that Putin was speaking through Musk.
“Putin does this frequently,” she said. “He uses prominent people as intermediaries to feel out the general political environment, to basically test how people are going to react to ideas.”
And she simply wouldn’t let up.
“It’s ironic that Elon Musk, the man who has been talking about getting us to Mars should be Putin’s messenger for the war in Ukraine, when we’re having a really hard time getting our act together on this planet,” she alleged.
Elon Musk continued to warn of the threat of nuclear war Monday, once again referencing Russia’s insistence that Ukraine acknowledges Crimea as Russian territory.
“If Russia is faced with the choice of losing Crimea or using battlefield nukes, they will choose the latter,” he wrote in response to his prediction of a possible nuclear war. “We’ve already sanctioned/cutoff Russia in every possible way, so what more do they have left to lose?”
“If we nuke Russia back, they will nuke us and then we have WW3,” he cautioned.
If Russia is faced with the choice of losing Crimea or using battlefield nukes, they will choose the latter.
We’ve already sanctioned/cutoff Russia in every possible way, so what more do they have left to lose?
If we nuke Russia back, they will nuke us and then we have WW3.
Critics noted that Musk’s messages were focused mostly on Russia’s needs and Ukraine’s concessions.
“If Russia faces destruction of their army and utter defeat by NATO, they will use nukes, then NATO will respond with nukes and civilization is over,” the billionaire fired back.
“But, hey, look on the bright side! At least Russia doesn’t get Crimea in that scenario, so you can be comforted by that thought, while watching the mushroom clouds rise.”
And unlike Hill, Musk has actually put his money where his mouth is – with his company Starlink supplying and even paying for satellite internet that the Ukraine military depends on. Essentially, and whether deliberate or not, that makes Musk the enemy in the eyes of Russia.
If Russia faces destruction of their army and utter defeat by NATO, they will use nukes, then NATO will respond with nukes and civilization is over
Former President Donald Trump has also argued, like Elon Musk, that nuclear war must be averted.
“Be strategic, be smart (brilliant!), get a negotiated deal done NOW,” Trump said. “Both sides need and want it. The entire World is at stake.”
Musk and Trump’s calls for peace actually led Pavel Podvig, a so-called expert on Russia’s nuclear doctrine and capabilities at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, to accuse the men of being “dangerous.”
Let me repeat – calling to avoid nuclear war, not actual nuclear war, is dangerous.
“If you yield to this nuclear threat once, then what would prevent Russia in the future — or others — to do the same thing again?” Podvig said.
“Just giving in at this point would actually be dangerous,” he added.
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Battlefield developments regarding the brutal, unprovoked, imperialistic Russian invasion of Ukraine appear multiple times on this site’s front page every day—with good reason. For starters, Moscow has the world’s second largest military, and more nuclear weapons than any other country. Truly understanding the conflict means looking beyond what’s happened since hostilities began and examining history.
For example, although many of us have a vague sense that Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler share some similarities as aggressive warmongers, it’s important to provide substance to supplement that vague sense—and to connect the history to the present both in terms of events in Europe and the reaction of our own country to the two dictators’ bloodthirsty acts.
The First World War officially ended at the stroke of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918—an appalling six hours after the countries involved had signed the armistice agreement. How many soldiers died in combat during those final six hours? Almost three thousand, and the last one was an American.
The conflict decisively altered the map of Central and Eastern Europe.
Before:
After:
Four states that had ruled over large swathes of territory were defeated, and their dynasties overthrown: the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian, and German empires. The Ottoman Empire dissolved, and the Turkish Republic that emerged in its place was limited to the Turkish heartland of Anatolia and, in Europe, a tiny bit of land surrounding Istanbul (they had lost much of their territory in Europe in the Balkan Wars that immediately preceded WWI).
The war led to fundamental change in Russia. The country became a democracy for a few months in 1917, and then, thanks to the Bolsheviks, transformed into the Soviet Union near the end of that year. By losing the war, it lost control over Finland, as well as the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which all became independent, while the territory known now as Moldova went from being Russian to Romanian. However, during the Second World War, the USSR reacquired all of these, except Finland—of which it did get a small slice—and added a large block of eastern Poland as well.
Austria-Hungary, the patrimony of the Habsburg dynasty, split apart completely. Most importantly for our purposes, its dissolution left millions who identified as ethnic Germans as either minorities in newly created states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, or in the rump-Austrian Republic. The Treaty of Versailles barred the newly created Austria from joining their territory to that of Germany, a step—known in German as Anschluss—that its leaders and most citizens wanted to take, rather than remain an independent state.
As for Germany, the Hohenzollern family abdicated the throne and democracy became its form of government. Elected leaders drew up a new constitution in the city of Weimar, which gave its name to the era running from the end of the war until Hitler’s takeover in 1933. The Versailles Treaty mandated that Germany hand over Alsace-Lorraine to France, a small piece of land to Belgium, a province to Denmark, and, in the East, one city (Memel) to Lithuania, as well as a large chunk of territory to Poland—which was reconstituted 123 years after having been forcibly partitioned by neighboring states. Large numbers of people who identified as Germans were now citizens of the new Poland, living in what became known as the “Polish Corridor.”
Germany had been the predominant military power on the European continent since its unification in 1871—accomplished in the wake of its crushing defeat of France, which had held that title for over two centuries. The country had a long tradition of militarism, and most Germans held martial values in high regard. They were proud of the nation’s military strength and battlefield victories. On the whole, Germany felt humiliated and was left wanting revenge after their defeat in WWI. Some Germans, in particular on the right, wanted nothing more than to undo the war’s outcome.
These revisionist desires were a major factor fueling Hitler's ability to win support—he was going to make Germany great again—and, ultimately, provided the basis for his aggressive foreign policy in the 1930s. As noted on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website:
Revision of the Versailles Treaty represented one of the platforms that gave radical right wing parties in Germany, including Hitler's Nazi Party, such appeal to mainstream voters in the 1920s and early 1930s. Promises to rearm, to reclaim German territory, particularly in the East, and to regain prominence again among European and world powers after a humiliating defeat, stoked ultranationalist sentiment and helped average Germans to overlook the more radical tenets of Nazi ideology.
During the Weimar era, Germany’s relations with its neighbors were not exactly placid, but at least war was avoided. After 1923, when the conflict over reparations payments was resolved, Germany had a “productive working relationship” with the two large West European democracies, Britain and France, and officially accepted the territorial losses along its western borders. German relations with its eastern neighbors were less settled, to be sure. However, In 1928, Germany signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which officially outlawed war “as an instrument of national policy.”
Five years later, Adolf Hitler had become chancellor of Germany. Through the violence and deceit he employed in the initial weeks of his rule, he became absolute dictator—the Fuehrer. Hitler’s military and foreign policy contains strong parallels to what we are seeing from Putin’s Russia today.
not carbon copies
The two are not carbon copies, to be sure. Nazi Germany’s commitment to murderous antisemitism and genocide—its meticulously developed and executed plan to kill every Jew, along with Roma and other groups deemed racially or otherwise inferior—is not something we are seeing from present-day Russia, although their war crimes against Ukrainian civilians are certainly despicable. Nevertheless, virtually from the time Hitler took power, he began his quest to reverse the results of WWI and alter his country's borders, a quest that brought Europe into war.
One of Hitler’s guiding principles was that ethnic Germans—those with, in his terms, German blood—needed to be “regathered" into the German state after being left outside it. The most egregious injustice, in the eyes of the Nazis, were those people whose territories were part of non-German states, such as Poland and Czechoslovakia, where they were being supposedly "mistreated."
Among his earliest steps, in 1936 Hitler took full control of the Rhineland—the demilitarized zone west of the Rhine River, on the border with France. Then, in 1938 he sent German troops into Austria and achieved the long-sought Anschluss. Later that year, he used the threat of force to acquire the Sudetenland—a part of western Czechoslovakia that bordered Germany, where German-speakers lived—although he promised that he’d then leave the rest of the country alone. In March 1939, he broke that promise. German forces marched in and took the rest of the Czech part of the country, and set up a Nazi-puppet regime in the Slovak half.
Hitler then turned his focus to Poland. After enacting a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union—which included a “secret protocol” by which the two countries agreed to divide Poland between them—Nazi Germany invaded its eastern neighbor on Sept. 1, 1939, and plunged Europe into the Second World War.
the many similarities
Russia's story over the past three-plus decades contains many similarities. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet empire—which, in Putin's words from 2005, constitute "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century"—stand as the equivalent of Germany’s defeat in WWI.
Within Russia, one generation after the end of the USSR, the autocratic Putin had dismantled the Yeltsin-era democracy that followed Soviet communism. Although the post-Soviet democracy did look shaky right from the start—people were talking about "Weimar Russia" as early as 1995—Putin is the person who delivered the death blow. Timothy Snyder, the preeminent historian of totalitarianism, has characterized Putin’s Russia as a fascist government, and contended that it is currently waging “a fascist war of destruction” in Ukraine. In this insightful New York Times op-ed piece, Snyder explores significant commonalities in the nature of the Putin and Hitler regimes.
Since first taking power in 2000, Putin has also ushered in an abrupt close to a period of relatively good relations with Russia's neighbors, which culminated in the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997. The document states that “NATO and Russia do not consider one another adversaries and cites the sweeping transformations in NATO and Russia that make possible this new relationship.” After Putin became president, he cast aside those sentiments as easily as he takes off his shirt for photo-ops.
It’s also worth noting that in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia made a guarantee to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine,” in return for Kyiv turning its share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal over to Moscow. Putin has made clear that agreement isn’t worth the paper on which it’s written.
The Russian president’s overarching goal has long been to reverse previous territorial losses born by his country. Much like Hitler, his revisionism focuses on recovering lands populated by his people’s ethnic kin (or those, like Ukrainians, he claims are kin, even if they reject such an identity). An estimated 25 million people who identified as ethnically Russian suddenly found themselves living outside the Russian Federation when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. Some moved back to Russia, while others went elsewhere, but approximately 20 million or more remain living in Russia’s near abroad.
but our people ...
Exactly as Hitler did regarding ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland and Poland in the 1930s, Putin has been employing rhetoric decrying how Russian-speakers in the former USSR were supposedly being mistreated. Putin used this to justify military action against Georgia in 2008—where South Ossetia and Abkhazia have large ethnic Russian populations—and Ukraine, both in 2014, when it outright annexed Crimea and put troops into eastern Ukraine, as well as now.
Thinking beyond places where Moscow currently has armed forces or otherwise exercises control today (i.e., Belarus)—which also includes Transnistria, a breakaway, Russian-speaking part of Moldova bordering on Ukraine that has de facto sovereignty—significant numbers of people identifying as Russian live in every post-Soviet state. The largest in raw numbers reside in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Most ominously for European security, Russian-speakers also constitute large percentages of the population in Lithuania (15%), Estonia (30%) and Latvia (34%). These last three are members of NATO, but Russia has attempted to sow “disruption and discontent” in those countries nonetheless.
To take the long view, one can characterize European history from German unification in 1871 through 1945 as being centered around that country’s push to expand its borders and dominate the continent, and the period from 1945 to the present as being dominated by a similar push from Russia. Many once thought the latter push ended in 1991, but, as with Germany, a second phase began fewer than twenty years after the first one met defeat. The apocryphal Mark Twain quote applies here: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
the difference in U.S. responses
We can also explore parallels, as well as differences, between the U.S. response to the outbreak of the Second World War and to Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine. Concerning the former, Franklin Roosevelt faced significant isolationist sentiment in the U.S. These were embodied by the strong restrictions contained in the Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936, which imposed a U.S. embargo on the sale of all arms and military supplies to any party involved in a war. However, after Hitler’s invasion of Poland, FDR overcame the opposition of isolationists and began aiding the enemies of Nazi Germany.
First, President Roosevelt convinced Congress to allow him to sell military equipment on a “cash and carry” basis—as long as Britain and France could pay up front and get what they had bought home on their own, such sales were allowed. France fell to Hitler in June 1940, and Britain needed much more help, so FDR and newly minted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill got creative.
Next, the U.S. sent 50 outdated but still useful destroyers to help the British protect against a naval invasion of their island in return for 99-year leases on British bases in the Caribbean and off the Canadian coast. By the end of 1940, it was clear that far more was needed, so FDR introduced legislation, the Lend-Lease Act, that would authorize the necessary assistance without requiring any payment from those receiving it. It passed in March 1941. Here’s more on the act’s impact:
Roosevelt soon took advantage of his authority under the new law, ordering large quantities of U.S. food and war materials to be shipped to Britain from U.S. ports through the new Office of Lend-Lease Administration. The supplies dispersed under the Lend-Lease Act ranged from tanks, aircraft, ships, weapons and road building supplies to clothing, chemicals and food.
By the end of 1941, the lend-lease policy was extended to include other U.S. allies, including China and the Soviet Union. By the end of World War II the United States would use it to provide a total of some $50 billion in aid to more than 30 nations around the globe, from the Free French movement led by Charles de Gaulle and the governments-in-exile of Poland, the Netherlands and Norway to Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru.
Let’s compare FDR to our two most recent presidents: Donald Trump and Joe Biden. First, we have The Man Who Lost An Election And Tried Steal It. Sticking just to what became public, we know that he not only sucked up to Putin, but he also engaged in a long-running extortion campaign aimed at getting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to smear Biden in hopes of weakening the Democrat for the 2020 campaign. You might remember that when Zelenskyy sought to buy Javelin missiles in 2019, to protect against the Russian invasion he rightly feared, Fuck a L’Orange replied “I would like you to do us a favor, though.” Trump wanted the Ukrainian president to announce that his government was going to investigate Biden for argle-bargle. That’s what brought about his first impeachment. It wasn’t exactly a Rooseveltian response to a request for help made by a country facing attack.
President Biden, on the other hand, responded to the Russian invasion by strongly supporting Ukraine, with a robust diplomatic effort and billions of dollars in military assistance. His echoing of FDR even includes a revival of the historic Lend-Lease Act in the form of the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022. Just one more way Biden is the polar opposite of Trump.
The response of the U.S. and its NATO allies to Putin’s attack on Ukraine demonstrates a key difference between now and the events of Hitler’s day. Despite unleashing the greatest evil humanity has yet seen—and hopefully ever will see—the Nazi leader actually found military allies. The Nazi-led Axis included Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania in Europe, as well as Japan, because other countries not only had fascist governments too, but also shared Hitler’s aggressive desire to remake the map in their favor (democratic Finland, which was attacked by the USSR in 1939 and again in 1941, fought with the Axis as well after the second attack before reaching an armistice and switching sides in 1944).
Thus far, Putin’s Russia fights alone (except for tiny Belarus) against a country whose military efforts—and even its overall government functions—are being funded to a significant degree by the rest of Europe plus the U.S. The European Union in late June even made Ukraine an official candidate to join. NATO is working together more successfully than it has done in decades, coordinating their efforts to help Kyiv and punish Moscow. Furthermore, with the forthcoming accession of Sweden and Finland—the latter of which shares an 830-mile border with Russia—NATO will have more resources and strength than ever with which to contain Putin’s aggression.
Hitler’s war divided Europe (please note that, in addition to the countries fighting with Germany, the USSR was his “de facto ally,” as seen in the simultaneous Nazi/Soviet 1939 invasion of Poland, an alliance that lasted until he invaded the Soviet Union in 1941) whereas Putin’s war has united Europe against him. This is the great success of the institutions—NATO and the EU—created in the post-WWII years to incentivize democracy and peace on the continent. Hitler succeeded to the degree that he did because pre-WWII Europe lacked such institutions.
However, having the institutions exist on paper isn’t enough. Joe Biden deserves much credit for the NATO response to Ukraine, in particular given how much his disgraced predecessor weakened the U.S. relationship with NATO. Of course, Trump is now trying to “rewrite history” on this. Why not, I guess? He’s lied about literally everything else.
This week on The Brief, hosts Kerry Eleveld and Markos Moulitsas analyzed how a month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has played out, discussed the continued slide of the Republican Party into authoritarianism, and talked about Biden’s approval rating and how the electoral landscape is looking for Democrats heading into this fall.
As the attack on Ukraine continues, Eleveld and Moulitsas considered what the news coverage has gotten right—and wrong—so far, and how Daily Kos is offering important perspective, especially to help readers understand that the situation on the ground may not be as dire as it was initially portrayed.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, or Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy—this battle between Soviet-style authoritarian regime and Western democracy, Eleveld notes, has crystalized for a lot of Americans the fact that this type of battle is still going on in the world. And what’s more, it is ongoing and poses a huge, continuing threat not just externally, but also internally here in the United States. While progressives and Democrats had sounded the alarm throughout Trump’s tenure about where the Republican Party has been headed, few are hearing this message of, “Look, this is an authoritarian party. They want fewer people to vote, they want to control the outcomes of the vote, they’re fine being beholden to one person as long as that person manages to secure power. They really don’t seem that interested in a peaceful transfer of power,” Eleveld added.
Eleveld also thinks that the fact that Republicans haven’t wanted to explore the events of January 6, 2021, examine it, learn from it, make sure it doesn’t happen again—and have instead become denialist— is alarming in and of itself: “And it seems like independents [and those feeling on the fence about both parties] … they haven’t really grasped what this fight, what this existential fight for democracy is about.”
This conflict has really resonated and showed us exactly what’s at stake, both at home and abroad, linking war on the international stage to democracy in the U.S., she explained:
I feel like this horrific and gut-wrenching war that we have seen play out in Ukraine has crystalized for Americans, in a way, that threat that we haven’t felt in a very real way in some way since the end of World War II. I’m not saying there haven’t been instances of attacks and people feeling vulnerable, but the existential threat ... that the whole country feels hasn’t been brought home since WWII in the way that it has been brought home here. We’ve got to win this battle in Ukraine and we’ve got to do what we can to help them and hopefully at the same time deescalate tensions there. But we’ve got to win this battle at home too, and … I don’t want to dismiss what’s happening abroad at all, but this is a fight here at home in the United States. It’s an existential threat. One of our [political] parties is no longer invested in democracy, and you can see what that yields with someone like Vladimir Putin.
Moulitsas offered additional context, tying Trump and the Republican Party’s interests to Russia and Putin: “I don’t want it lost ... that the first impeachment of Donald Trump was because he was extorting Zelenskyy over javelin missiles — the same javelin missiles that have basically stopped the Russian hordes. Those were the missiles that Donald Trump was holding hostage unless Zelenskyy literally made up an investigation against Hunter Biden.”
Highlighting the urgency and interconnectedness of all these issues, Eleveld urged, “If there were ever a time to unmask the Republican Party for how profoundly unserious it is in this serious moment in history, it is now there for the Democrats, and there for their taking.”
Moulitsas agreed, highlighting gas prices—which he noted was “a plank of the Republican 2022 playbook”—as an example of how Democrats could show leadership in this moment:
Right now, the gas companies all have record profits. It’s not like it’s just a percentage or two. We’re talking like massive windfall records. The price of crude oil has been going down; the price of gasoline at the pump has not been going down. They’re pocketing that difference. It’s really easy for Democrats—I don’t understand why this isn’t happening—where you say, ‘We’re going to cut down, we’re going to eliminate the gas taxes and then we’re going to make it up with a windfall tax on energy companies.’ Boom. You’ve just shaved 30-40 cents off of a gallon of gas right off the bat, and you have the gas companies pay for it, and make it indefinite. And go above and beyond that, but there’s a way to shift this narrative [of] ‘this is Joe Biden’s gas prices’—shift that to the gas companies and make that relentless. Gas companies and Putin and war profiteers, there is plenty of that going around. Punish those people. Dare Joe Manchin to vote against it. I don’t even think Joe Manchin would dare vote against a windfall tax on gas companies.
Where does this leave Democrats today? How are things looking as the midterms approach? Moulitsas and Eleveld shifted the conversation to focus on what trends in polling from Civiqs are telling us about this fall. Eleveld signaled that Biden seems to be coming back from a very difficult few months, as polling has shown:
I don’t think we should be super worried about exact numbers right now as much as we should be worried about trends. When I [left for medical leave a few weeks ago], Joe Biden had been on a steady downward trajectory on Civiqs for months on months on end with a few minor breaks, and it might plateau for a second, but then it was going back down. Since then, what we have seen is that it’s started to rebound, right? After the State of the Union address, it started to rebound, and I’m inclined to think that because that rebound on Civiqs has continued, that Joe Biden is getting credit for competent handling of this global response to Putin and his aggression and this completely unprovoked war. It has been, objectively, a great response.
I think that this has been a reminder for both Democrats … and independents; [among them] he’s gotten a net plus gain of about six point or seven points since Russia invaded Ukraine … I think for Democrats, some of them, it’s really reminded them, ‘Oh my God, this is why we elected Joe Biden,’ for competent handling of the pandemic. Some people have different opinions on how competent that’s been. No doubt that the rollout of the vaccine program was incredibly competent and swift—we just couldn’t get everybody to buy into it because the Republican Party was by and large telling people, ‘Don’t do it.’ … I think it reminded independents why they voted for Joe Biden.
The sentiment seems to be common even among Trump-Biden voters, the cohosts noted, citing recent focus groups. As Eleveld summarized, “Over and over, they [are] kind of saying, ‘Look at the situation in Ukraine. Like, can you imagine if Donald Trump was [in office]? We might have World War III right now, because Donald Trump is just that [unpredictable.] I mean, maybe not, but you just don’t know what he would have done. And then [they] were talking about Trump saying Putin is ‘genius’ and just saying how ‘disgraceful’ that was. It’s just disgraceful that he built Putin up for four years and now he feels this need to weigh in.”
The big picture crystallization of authoritarianism versus democracy has been brought home to the American people as they watch the conflict in Ukraine unfold, and polling is showing a slow but sure uptick in Biden’s approval ratings as this situation in Ukraine continues to play out. Eleveld thinks that ultimately, this has put Biden and Democrats on better footing:
I can’t tell you whether or not they’re going to be able to totally capitalize on this moment here, but I can tell you, as we always say, I’m not just trying to play politics here. This upcoming election is as important to the global fight for democracy and freedom as anything else that is going on, including what is happening in Ukraine. We have to win here at home, we have to win there, we have to win everywhere.
Today’s most significant news is the announcement from Russia that they intend to pull back from some areas near Kyiv, allegedly as a magnanimous gesture. We can say with near certainty that Putin’s generals aren’t doing it out of goodwill. Still, the move does seem to answer one of our most pressing questions of the past few days: With continued Ukrainian successes against Russian positions northeast and northwest of Kyiv, how close might Ukrainians be to achieving the complete encirclement of major parts of the Russian invasion force?
It would be such an enormous military victory as to be unthinkable, and few analysts appear to consider it plausible even as Ukrainian victories in the northeast led to new maps that looked perilously close to it. However, the Russian announcement hints that no matter how we outside observers were interpreting the scenario, Russian generals are now concerned enough to order troops in the most vulnerable positions around Kyiv to pull back to more protected ground.
Another recent action signals that Russia finds its position more precarious than it is willing to admit: the recent destruction of a major bridge south of Chernihiv. It was first hypothesized to be a cruel move intended to block civilian evacuations; a more plausible interpretation is that Russia has abandoned using the route to resupply its Kyiv attacks and is now (literally) burning the bridges behind it to stall Ukrainian counterattacks.
Russia may be attempting to sell its shifting of forces as a move to “focus on the Donbas” or “better enable negotiations.” The practical truth of the matter is that Putin’s generals have spent a great many lives in their attempts to push closer to Kyiv, only to now find those positions too dangerous to keep holding. Russia won’t be pulling back very far, but it’s impossible to hide its troop movements from satellites and needs an excuse for why it’s pulling troops from spots now too threatened by Ukrainian territory recaptures to keep. The preferred public answer: We meant to do that!
Again, this doesn’t mean Russian troops will be going very far, and it certainly doesn’t mean Russia doesn’t intend to regroup and attempt to push more artillery back toward Kyiv in the coming weeks. But it means Ukraine has bloodied the attackers enough that Russia’s no longer just “pausing to resupply” along the Kyiv front but doesn’t feel it can sustain its current positions in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks. That is significant, especially since we can imagine how Vladimir Putin will respond to the generals bringing him such news.
The war has been taking an increasingly partisan turn here at home. The biggest reason is that Donald Trump keeps opening his mouth, shattering whatever show of pro-Ukrainian unity his Republican Party manages to craft between his outbursts. But a new demand by House Republicans that his Ukrainian extortion scheme be officially papered over, added to a confusing move by a major television network to rehabilitate one of the Trumpites who most worked to cover up the scheme, aren’t helping. The first step to defending Ukraine would be to reject plans to extort the nation for political benefit … and they still can’t do it.
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