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So I asked my Post Opinions colleagues David Ignatius and Max Boot: Will Biden’s commitment to Ukraine help him against Trump in November?
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Alexi McCammond: Hey guys — thanks so much for doing this. Now that House Republicans managed to pass Ukraine aid — with the help of Democrats — it seems like a winning issue for Biden this fall. Do you think this issue opens the door for Biden to win over some moderate Republicans?
Max Boot: I’m honestly skeptical that Ukraine aid will be a big issue in the fall given that the House finally did the right thing. I’m sure some Republicans were concerned that if they blocked aid, and if Ukraine were defeated (as CIA Director William J. Burns just warned would be the case without U.S. aid), then the GOP might get blamed for “losing Ukraine.”
David Ignatius: Standing with Ukraine now seems to be truly a bipartisan issue. And the “Moscow Marjorie” meme shows that it could be tricky for Republicans to seem to oppose Ukraine (and implicitly support Russia). Trump will probably still try to push a peace deal. But I think House Speaker Mike Johnson’s “profile in courage” (really!) will resonate with non-MAGA Republicans and may help them find their footing again.
Max: Imagine if Jim Jordan were speaker! Russia might have won the war this year.
Alexi: Also, isn’t Trump’s “peace” deal really just telling Russia to wrap this thing up?
Max: If Trump wins, I’m sure he will cut off aid and sell out Ukraine. If Biden wins, and if two-thirds of Congress remains supportive of Ukraine, the aid can keep flowing — and Vladimir Putin will gradually realize that he can’t prevail. That, in turn, might galvanize Russia into serious peace negotiations.
David: Another question, Max: Will the United States give Ukraine enough ATACM-300s to put Russian positions in Crimea at risk?
Alexi: 🎤👩🏽💻
Max: I was cheered by two things that the House did as part of its aid package: It called on Biden to send the longer-range, unitary-warhead ATACMS to Ukraine, and it passed the REPO Act calling on Biden to send frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. Both are important potential steps but will depend on presidential leadership. These are issues where Congress can only encourage, not mandate, executive branch action.
David: My sense is that some ATACMS are already in Ukraine. On negotiations, it seems pretty clear that Putin won’t stop unless something he cares about (like Crimea) is at risk. Maybe then he will have incentive to negotiate.
Max: As long as Putin thinks his No. 1 fan might win the U.S. presidential election, he has every incentive to hang tough for now and hope Ukraine will eventually get cut off, allowing him to complete his conquest.
David: Militarily, I think the question is whether Ukraine can block what both President Volodymyr Zelensky and Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told me last month is a coming Russian offensive starting in June to try to gain total control of Donbas. Americans like to back a winner. So stopping the Russian advance will be important.
Alexi: Sounds like Biden has a lot to do in the next five weeks, but getting Johnson to do the right thing was a good start.
Max: A lot of people were saying that Johnson (R-La.) had to channel his inner Winston Churchill over Neville Chamberlain. But I think he was really channeling his inner Harry S. Truman — another underestimated legislator who rose to the occasion when granted high office. I was struck by how influenced Johnson was by U.S. intelligence about Ukraine’s dire situation and by his realization that he now has to represent the whole country, not just his district. He rose to the occasion. I hope he keeps on doing it.
David: Yes, on intel as a factor for Johnson. When the history of this administration is written, Burns’s role — in the run up to the Ukraine war, in the Gaza negotiations and now in the conversion of Johnson — will be great reading.
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The next word
The Bulwark’s William Kristol is convinced that the congressional legislation providing additional aid for Ukraine “will go up in smoke” if Trump is elected in November. “So the task is to use this victory to weaken Trump and strengthen Joe Biden,” he wrote.
For anti-Trump Republicans such as Kristol, this rare bipartisan feat — deftly handled by the president and Johnson — could be the most important inflection point in the 2024 election: “There’s not going to be a better time to discredit Trump as a leader of the free world,” Kristol writes. “There’s not going to be a better time to explain why Trump cannot be our next president. So run campaign ads. Send out surrogates. Have pro-Ukraine Republicans — including former Trump officials like Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Mark Esper — to the White House to hear directly from the president, and to make suggestions to him on how to build on this moment to strengthen a bipartisan consensus for a pro-freedom foreign policy. Strike while this iron is hot.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian soldiers are preparing for either outcome this fall, as David Ignatius learned during a March visit to Kyiv in which he interviewed Budanov: “Near the end of our conversation, I asked Budanov if he was worried that if Trump were elected, he might try to impose a settlement,” Ignatius wrote. “His answer surprised me, but perhaps it underlined what a canny intelligence operator he is. He’s already recruiting a potential asset.”
Budanov told Ignatius that he respects Trump’s “personality” and lauded the former president’s tenacity. “There have been nine instances in his life when he went to the top, fell to the very bottom of life, and went back again,” he said. But, Budanov concluded, “Even a person like him won’t be able to resolve this issue in one day.”
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This week, four years ago
Scientists and health experts were scouring data to understand how the coronavirus attacked not just the lungs but also the brain, heart, liver and kidneys, too. Others were scrambling to understand how a mysterious blood-clotting complication was rapidly killing covid-19 patients.
And what was Fox News up to? Serving up “a big dose of dumb on hydroxychloroquine,” as The Post’s Erik Wemple explained. The drug, hyped as a treatment for the deadly virus, turned out to be one of many right-wing distractions in the fight against the virus.
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Brain dump
- Can you still have a happy marriage without sex? Author Amanda Montei explored for New York Times Magazine. Find out.
- Why do young voters feel this way? Their views on immigration are curious, as pollster John Della Volpe writes off a new Harvard survey. Read here.
- How did we get all these cute dogs? Author (and cat owner 🤔) Tommy Tomlinson has a great essay for Post Opinions. See more.
