Zelensky Miscalculates With Republicans

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Jack and Robbie here. Good news for your 2024 travel plans: If you’re heading to the beautiful country of Kenya, you will no longer need a visa come the new year—no matter where you’re from.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Zelensky’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day on Capitol Hill, the Discord leaker’s bosses are (finally) getting punished, and lawmakers lose their minds over Biden’s direct sale of tank ammo to Israel.

Bad trip

There has been a lot of reporting on Republicans and Ukraine in recent weeks, and we at SitRep have noticed that a lot of it just isn’t that accurate. This could have big implications for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his ongoing efforts to rally bipartisan support for Ukraine and its war against Russia in the future. Let us explain…

The Biden administration combined new Ukraine support with a broader national security funding package that also tackles Taiwan, Israel, and border security and it has turned into a massive political impasse and headache for the White House.

Democrats charge that by blocking the funding package, Republicans are doing Russian President Vladimir Putin a huge favor. For Republicans, however, it’s all about the border, and Ukraine funding—which most support—is just caught in the crossfire.

And Zelensky’s latest visit to Washington this week, a last-ditch bid to get Congress to pass this large national security funding package, didn’t seem to help matters.

So what’s that mean for Ukraine? We’ve been hearing a lot from Republican supporters of Ukraine about how Zelensky’s visit this week went, and some—though not all—told us that Ukraine isn’t doing itself any favors in how it’s engaging Congress now.

“Zelensky’s visit yesterday was not good. It was completely tone-deaf and missed the point and the issues that are really at the heart of the current funding disputes,” a Republican congressional aide said. “It would have been better if he had just not come in the broader supplemental fight. It’s going to take a little bit of time to get over this.”

Zelensky’s allies in Washington seemed to think that if he just gave the right speech, in the most compelling way possible, Republicans could be convinced to fold on border negotiations and rush through the funding package as it stands. Politically, that’s just impossible to do given how the border has become such a hot-button political issue, particularly for Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying to keep his razor-thin majority united.

Some Republicans came away impressed by Zelensky’s arguments during his meetings in Washington, describing him as articulate and clear. Others, however, came away from the visit resentful that it backed them into a corner and gave Democrats more ammunition—accurate or not—that the Republican Party is soft on Russia.

Zelensky’s push for more U.S. funding makes sense given the dire straits Ukraine faces in its war against a much larger and (on paper at least) more militarily powerful neighbor. But continuing to send billions of dollars to Ukraine is more politically sensitive for Republicans now, with the momentum the anti-Ukraine faction has, and coming to Washington to ask for more money when they’re focused primarily on southern border negotiations just puts a magnifying glass on that.

Other pro-Ukraine Republicans are glad that Zelensky pressed the flesh in person and tried to steer clear of partisan politics.

“There are no silver bullets in the chamber—the arguments he made have all already been aired publicly,” said Peter Rough, a senior fellow and the director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute. “But his presence made the issue more visceral and palpable, which is what I suspect he was banking on.”

Falling out. The disconnect between Zelensky and his allies on Capitol Hill goes back at least a year—if not further. The Ukrainian president’s visit last year, which came as Republicans in Congress were pushing for Russia to be named a state sponsor of terrorism, included no mention of that.

A congressional aide told SitRep that the Biden administration has repeatedly instructed top Ukrainian officials to cut contact with Congress—and more specifically, congressional Republicans—to skirt political pressure.

The administration has basically shut off Ukrainian conversations with the Hill in general but with Republicans more specifically for the better part of 18 months. The White House told the Ukrainians to tell Zelensky to stop Zoom calls with the Hill after the first few months of the war, Republican congressional aides told SitRep.

The White House blocked other efforts by congressional leaders to have recurring contact with senior Ukrainian officials in Kyiv.

“The ability for Republicans to talk to the Ukrainians at very senior levels is very limited,” the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about closed-door talks. “What you’re seeing is 18 months of that policy coming home to roost, where the senior Ukrainian officials have no real engagement with any Republicans in the House or the Senate.”

Though pro-Ukraine Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey Graham often still travel to Kyiv, Zelensky’s stage-managed visits have made him less accessible to U.S. lawmakers and out of touch on key issues in the United States, such as the border fight. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council (NSC) pushed back, denying that the White House had blocked Ukrainian officials from speaking to congressional Republicans, instead saying it had encouraged contact between the two sides.

Better luck next year. Republicans now expect the fight over the supplemental aid package that includes more than $60 billion in military aid to drag into January, despite Zelensky’s pleas.

Why? Even the most rock-ribbed Reagan Republicans feel that they’ve been bearing most of the political costs of helping to get $75 billion in cash and weapons to help Ukraine repel the Russian invasion, without any political concessions for their party. And they’re getting tired of carrying the weight.

There might be a little bit of flexibility but not a lot. And the clock is ticking.

The Biden administration has enough money left in drawdown authority to keep weapons moving into Ukraine for weeks, giving Republicans in Congress who support Ukraine a bit of wiggle room—and some Republican lawmakers believe that the Defense Department can keep pulling old weapons out of stocks even if the money runs out.

Back in Ukraine, there is frustration with both U.S. political parties.

“I feel like we are being played by both parties,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker. “If Democrats didn’t bring the deal on the border, everything would be fine. But they stepped out at the last second. And now they’re blaming Republicans for not voting. Republicans, on the other side, put the No. 1 demand they always wanted and something they would go to elections with—the border issue. And they are using Ukraine to push their own agenda.”

A new narrative is getting things wrong, for now at least. We’ve picked up on this narrative taking root in Washington that the small anti-Ukraine faction of the Republican Party (think Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz) is ascendant and the pro-Ukraine faction is a thing of the past.

The reality is that if there were a vote on a bill solely funding more military and economic aid to Ukraine, by our very rough count it would likely get 350 or more supporters in the House and around 90 votes in the Senate—virtually all Democrats and a large majority of Republicans.

The Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world may get more reposts and media attention, but most of the power in the Republican Party still lies with the much larger, much more powerful pro-Ukraine faction. That could well change in 2024, with Donald Trump’s comeback and his, shall we say, unorthodox approach to Russia and Ukraine, but until then, it’s the reality of what Congress looks like now.

The pro-Ukraine faction of Republicans still won’t approve funding without significant concessions from Biden on controversial border security measures, but it’s an important point worth noting. Still, that’s cold comfort to Ukrainians as winter sets in.

“We don’t have that time,” said Ustinova, the Ukrainian lawmaker. “We already are running out of munitions. And they [Russia] know that. Besides, a lot of our munitions ended up in Israel. We literally cannot afford an extra month without the support.”

Let’s Get Personnel

The Senate confirmed Harry Coker as national cyber director in a 59-40 vote on Tuesday.

On the Button

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

Good COP, bad COP. The United Nations climate talks that wrapped up in Dubai this week have been criticized for a lot of things—including being too close to big oil companies in the Persian Gulf. (An Associated Press report found that the Saudi delegation included undeclared members of the state oil company.) But FP’s Christina Lu reports that negotiators finally came to agreement on a deal that has tougher fossil fuel language than initially included, calling on nations to transition away from burning carbon in a “just, orderly and equitable manner” while redoubling efforts to build renewable energy capacity and helping the countries that have suffered from climate change-related damage.

Discord. Remember those leaks of classified U.S. secrets on Discord servers that surfaced back in April? The supervisors of Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira are finally being punished for it. On Monday, the Air Force inspector general reported that Teixeira’s superiors—who suspected he might be up to no good—failed to take proper action. (The 21-year-old Teixeira has been in jail since his arrest in April under charges related to the Espionage Act.)

The inspector general found that Teixeira’s bosses allowed him unsupervised access to roam through troves of classified documents that weren’t related to his job while he performed maintenance inspections of a top secret facility and intentionally failed to report their concerns to security officials over fears that they might overreact.

Up in arms. Democratic allies of the White House in Congress are none too happy with U.S. President Joe Biden’s move to make an end-around of Capitol Hill to directly sell 14,000 tank shells to Israel last week amid the war with Hamas that has left nearly 19,000 Palestinians dead. That’s according to our friends at Politico, who reported that House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks and others, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, are upset about the lack of heads-up about the move.

“The bottom line is, I think Israel has the right to defend itself against the terrorist group like Hamas, but they do not have a right to go to war against the women and children of Palestine, thousands of whom have already been killed,” Sanders said. Meanwhile, the Biden administration still has no plans to put conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel, in spite of the high civilian death toll.

Snapshot

A woman reacts as she watches a parliament session on a confidence vote of outgoing Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a cinema in Warsaw on Dec. 11. Polish lawmakers voted to reject the proposed conservative government, a widely expected outcome that paves the way for the rival pro-European Union alliance to form the next administration. Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

Put on Your Radar

Thursday, Dec. 14: The European Council holds a two-day leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Saturday, Dec. 16: A summit between Japan and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations begins in Tokyo.

Sunday, Dec. 17: Serbia holds snap parliamentary elections. Chile has a public vote on a new federal constitution.

Monday, Dec. 18: The results of Egypt’s presidential election are announced. Incumbent Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took power in a coup in 2013, is widely expected to win another term.

Wednesday, Dec. 20: The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds general elections.

Quote of the Week

“I think he has to change, and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move.”

—U.S. President Joe Biden on the elephant in the room in the Israel-Hamas war: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition

This Week’s Most Read

• How Will This War End? How Can the Next One be Prevented? by FP Contributors
• Is There Such a Thing as a Global South? by C. Raja Mohan
• The Global Credibility Gap by Jared Cohen and Ian Bremmer

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The special counsel who stole Christmas? In the never-ending legal saga of Donald Trump, his lawyers have resorted to some holiday-themed burns for the prosecution side, namely, comparing special counsel Jack Smith to the Grinch for wanting to continue legal proceedings through the holidays and ruining their holiday travel plans, as CNN reports. “It is as if the Special Counsel growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming. … But how?’” Trump’s defense attorneys wrote in a new legal filing.

Sweater weather. Black holes are apparently freezing inside and incredibly hot just outside. We get the whole black tie thing, but what are you supposed to wear to a black hole event?

Update, Dec. 15, 2023: This newsletter has been updated to include comment from an NSC spokesperson.