As conflicts rage abroad, a fractured Congress attemps to muster support
WASHINGTON — As the Senate wrapped up its work for the year, Sen. Michael Bennet took to the floor of the nearly empty chamber and made a late-night plea for Congress to redouble support for Ukraine: “Understand the stakes at this moment.”
It was the third time in recent months the Colorado Democrat has kept the Senate working late by holding up unrelated legislation in a bid to cajole lawmakers to approve tens of billions of dollars in weaponry and economic aid for Ukraine. During a nearly hour-long, emotional speech, he called on senators to see the nearly 2-year-old conflict as a defining clash of authoritarianism against democracy and implored them to consider what it means for Ukrainians to fight “on that freezing front line and not know whether we’re going to come through with the ammunition.”
Yet Congress broke for the holidays and is not expected to return for two weeks while continued aid for Ukraine has nearly been exhausted. The Biden administration is planning to send one more aid package before the new year but said it would be the last unless Congress approves more money.
With support slipping in Congress even as conflicts and unrest rattle global security, the United States is once again struggling to assert its role in the world. Under the influence of Donald Trump, the former president who is now the Republican Party front-runner, GOP lawmakers have increasingly taken a skeptical stance toward U.S. involvement abroad, particularly when it comes to Ukraine.
Leaders of traditional allies Britain and France have implored Western nations to continue their robust support, but Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is emboldened and building up resources for a fresh effort as the war heads toward its third year.
Bolstering Ukraine’s defense used to be celebrated in the Capitol as one of a few remaining bipartisan causes. But now the fate of roughly $61 billion in funding is tied to delicate policy negotiations on Capitol Hill over border and immigration changes. And in the last year, lawmakers have had to mount painstaking, round-the-clock efforts to pass even legislation that maintains basic functions of the U.S. government.
Still, congressional leaders are trying to rally members to address global challenges they have said are among the most difficult in decades: the largest land invasion of a European nation since World War II, a war between Israel and Hamas, unrest and economic calamity driving historic levels of migration and China asserting itself as a superpower.