House liberals urge Biden to rethink Ukraine strategy
A group of 30 House liberals is urging President Biden to dramatically shift his strategy on the Ukraine war and pursue direct negotiations with Russia, the first time prominent members of his own party have pushed him to change his approach to Ukraine.
The letter, sent to the White House on Monday and obtained by The Washington Post, could create more pressure on Biden as he tries to sustain domestic support for the war effort, at a time when the region is heading into a potentially difficult winter and Republicans are threatening to cut aid to Ukraine if they retake Congress.
In a letter led by Representative Pramila Jayapal, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the 30 Democrats call on Biden to pair the unprecedented economic and military support the United States is providing Ukraine with a ‘‘proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.’’
The Democrats are specifically concerned that the United States is not engaging in regular dialogue with Russia as part of its effort to end a protracted war that has caused thousands of deaths and displaced 13 million people. The Biden administration has been adamant that it is up to Kyiv whether and when to negotiate with Russia, arguing that Ukrainians as a free people should decide their fate.
But some Russia experts say Moscow will only negotiate with the United States, a fellow superpower. The lawmakers say that opening must be seized given the war’s spreading devastation, adding, ‘‘The alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks.’’
The liberal Democrats note that the war’s disastrous consequences are increasingly felt far beyond Ukraine, including elevated food and gas prices in the
United States and spikes in the price of wheat, fertilizer, and fuel that have created global food shortages, not to mention the danger of a nuclear attack by Moscow.
White House spokesman John Kirby, responding to the lawmakers’ letter, said the administration ‘‘appreciates their very thoughtful concerns’’ but reiterated that the Ukrainians must be central to any diplomatic overtures.
WASHINGTON POST
Pelosi rejects suggestion Ukraine aid is ‘blank check’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back against the GOP suggestion that the United States has given a “blank check” of humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, insisting that support for the Eastern European country defending itself from Russia remains strong in Washington.
“I believe the support for Ukraine and their courage . . . will not stop,” she said Monday at a joint news conference in Zagreb, Croatia, with the Croatian prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic. ‘‘It is bipartisan, bicameral, and it starts in the White House with our president.”
The California Democrat added: “We have never given a blank check to Ukraine.”
Last week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy signaled that if Republicans win the
House in the midterm elections, they would cut back aid to Ukraine despite the geopolitical and moral imperatives of aiding the nation in its fight against Russia and Vladimir Putin.
The majority of congressional Republicans and Democrats have previously united in authorizing billions of dollars in US military and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv as a geopolitical and moral stand against Putin’s aggression, but McCarthy indicated that could change next year.
Eleven Republican senators and 57 House GOP members opposed the legislation, arguing that more needs to be done to account for how the money is spent and to trace weapons and equipment sent to the battlefield.
Pelosi is in Zagreb representing the United States at the First Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform, where bilateral meetings will focus on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine since the invasion in February as well as its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
WASHINGTON POST
Early votes in Georgia, nation could signal high ’22 turnout
ATLANTA — Early voting is going gangbusters in Georgia in the opening days of midterm balloting, fueling a new round of partisan jousting over Republicans’
overhaul of election procedures after Democrats’ 2020 victories in the state.
Through Sunday, about 838,000 Georgians had cast their ballots, most of them in person at advance voting sites, the rest returning mail ballots. That’s almost 60 percent higher than advance voting totals at this point in 2018, the last midterm election.
More than 10 percent of Georgia’s registered voters have already cast votes, a share that trails only Massachusetts and Vermont, where 22 percent and 16 percent of voters have sent in ballots, according to an Associated Press analysis of data collected by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald. California and Florida have each accepted more than 1 million mail ballots thus far. And the numbers nationwide are likely to accelerate this week as more states open early in-person polling places or send ballots to voters.
“We’re seeing very robust numbers of people who are voting early, so at this point we’d have to see turnout crater before Election Day for the trajectory we’re on to change,” McDonald said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Biden’s ‘closing argument’: Look at the alternative
WASHINGTON — With Republicans increasingly confident about victory in this year’s midterm elections, President Biden dismissed the polls in a speech at Democratic Party headquarters Monday, saying there’s still time for “one more shift” that will help his party.
“If we get people out to vote, we win,” Biden said to scores of Democratic organizers who cheered and chanted as he entered the room for what he called his “closing argument.” Campaign workers around the country tuned in via livestream for the pep talk, delivered 15 days from Election Day.
The speech was Biden’s latest attempt to turn the midterms into a choice between Democrats and Republicans, rather than a referendum on his unpopular administration at a time of entrenched economic dissatisfaction.
Biden has largely steered clear of traditional campaign events around the country, in favor of speeches where he tries to frame the stakes for voters.
He said Republicans would roll back progress on expanding health care coverage, limiting the cost of prescription drugs, and increasing taxes on corporations.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
At trial, Trump ally denies foreign influence charge
NEW YORK — A California billionaire known as an ally of Donald Trump used his testimony at his federal trial on Monday to question Trump’s leadership on foreign policy, saying the former president was clueless about the dynamics in the Middle East.
The defendant, Tom Barrack, is accused of using his “unique access” as a longtime friend of Trump to provide confidential information about the Trump administration to the United Arab Emirates to advance the UAE’s foreign policy and business interests.
Prosecutors say that while UAE officials were consorting with Barrack, they were rewarding him by pouring millions of dollars into his business ventures.
Barrack, the onetime chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, told a New York City jury that he considered Trump to be a “bold” and “smart” businessman, and had backed his candidacy as a political outsider who “could be a good thing for the system.” However, he testified that he later grew disillusioned because of Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and other divisive positions he called “disastrous.”
Barrack, 75, has pleaded not guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. His lawyers have denied he did anything
Court OK’s panel subpoena to Ariz. GOP chairwoman
PHOENIX — A federal appeals court panel has upheld a ruling requiring phone records of the Arizona Republican Party’s leader to be turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
The ruling issued over the weekend by a divided threejudge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected claims by state party chairwoman Kelli Ward that her First Amendment rights would be chilled if investigators were able to learn whom she spoke with while trying to challenge former president Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat.
Barring a successful appeal, the House committee will get records of calls that Ward made and received from just before the November 2020 election to Jan. 31, 2021. That includes a period when Ward was pushing for Trump’s election defeat to be overturned and Congress was set to certify the results.