Opposition to aid becomes a litmus test for the far right

Ukraine boosters alarmed, angry at antiaid trend

WASHINGTON — The Republican meltdown on Capitol Hill that toppled the speaker this week and left the House in chaos has also highlighted a sharp decline in GOP support for continuing to send aid to Ukraine and how opposition to helping Kyiv has become a litmus test for the far right.

The intensifying shift is striking for a party that has long defined itself by its belief in a muscular US military defending democracy around the world. And it could make it far more difficult for the Biden administration to fulfill its promise to support Ukrainian fighters for the long haul.

Hard-line Republican critics have long espoused isolationist views about Ukraine’s war effort, arguing that sending tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv risks dragging the United States into a head-on conflict with Russia and siphons money away from domestic challenges. Former president Donald Trump popularized the argument with his “America First” approach to foreign policy, but until recently most lawmakers refrained from embracing it.

But the drama that has played out in the House over the last week, as Republicans pushed the government to the brink of a shutdown and then deposed their own speaker, has made clear that the right-wing message is gaining momentum among Republicans.

In the past few days, Republicans managed to strip billions in military and humanitarian assistance requested by President Biden out of a stopgap spending bill to keep the government from shutting down. They rallied a majority of their colleagues in the House to vote against funding a program to train and equip Ukrainian troops. And a small faction of hard-liners joined with Democrats to boot Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, as speaker after accusing him of making a “secret side deal” with Biden to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia.

The division among Republicans on issue is now on vivid display in the fight to replace McCarthy, which pits Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican who has backed aid to Ukraine, against Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Judiciary Committee chair who is vocally opposed.

While the naysayers still represent a minority overall in Congress, the dramatic shift in Republican sentiment has left Ukraine’s boosters in the party angry, alarmed, and working to figure out how to reverse the trend before a lapse in funding hampers Ukraine on the battlefield.

They were particularly concerned last week, when 117 Republicans — a majority of their members — voted against a bill that would fund a $300 million program to train and equip Ukrainian fighters. The bill passed, but that level of GOP opposition almost certainly spells trouble ahead in the House, where Republicans typically refuse to take action on anything that does not have the backing of a majority of their own members.

Representative Mike D. Rogers, a Republican from Alaska, chair of the Armed Services Committee, lamented what he called a “small contingent” of rabble rousers “who have turned this into a bargaining chip for their schemes.”

They “have stirred up our base to make them think that if you’re for Ukrainian funding that you can’t be for a secure border, or you’re a lib or whatever,” Rogers added. “But when you talk with people, they don’t have a problem; they just don’t want to get in trouble back home.”

There were signs earlier this year that Ukraine aid might be in trouble. In June, McCarthy said he was against putting an emergency spending package for Ukraine to a vote on the House floor, citing a deal he had just struck with Biden to set federal spending limits in exchange for suspending the debt ceiling.

Then in July, the House voted on several amendments to block Congress from authorizing military assistance funds for Ukraine as part of its consideration of the defense authorization bill. All failed, but they revealed that Ukraine skepticism in the Republican Party had grown by a couple dozen votes since the year before.

The trend accelerated noticeably after lawmakers went home for an extended summer recess to spend time with constituents. When they returned to Washington, dozens more were joining critics to vote against Ukraine funding. Politics and public pressure, apparently, had tipped the scales.