It’s been one month since the attack on Israel, but Washington has yet to deliver an aid package to its closest ally. The reason has to do with a different ally, in a different war: Speaker Mike Johnson has opposed continued funding for Ukraine, and wants the issue separated from aid to Israel, setting up a clash between the House and Senate.
Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress for The Times, discusses the battle within the Republican Party over whether to keep funding Ukraine.
Guest: Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- The Republican-led House approved $14.3 billion for Israel’s war with Hamas, but no further funding for Ukraine.
- Speaker Johnson’s bill put the House on a collision course with the Senate.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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in a tavern easy, and this is the daily it's been one month since the attack on Israel.
But Washington has yet to deliver an aid package to its closest ally. The reason has to do with a different ally in a different more today my colleague kitty
it's on the battle within the republican party over whether to keep funding ukraine, the it's tuesday november, seventh katie nice to see you get to see sabrina whereby catching you, I see some very
we're nate mirrors in the background, yet my house, actually not those and oppress gallery, which also apologise for any noise in the background, is ok. Ok,
we're going to ignore the noise in working to just dive into it. Here we spent a lot of time over the past year talking about them
any battles playing out on capitol hill. Of course, the most recent one was the fight among house republicans over who would become speaker, but the war between Hamas and Israel has created a whole new battle in congress and that's over the question of funding foreign wars. Israel is, of course, a very close ally
united states and, as you know, normally we throw tons of money at our closer ally and no one would really question it. But it sounds like that's not what's happening right now, so tell me what's
on. That's right. I mean we're in kind of a striking moment where we're about a month, then after the war broke out and congress has yet to send any emergency aid to Israel and actually at the moment, is not close to doing so. The house introduce this sharply partisan
for israel funding last week, one that basically was dead on arrival in the senate and so the kind of back to square one on this, and why is that? I mean it's extremely unusual for congress to be having these type
of partisan fights over emergency aid, especially to an ally like Israel, but what I think, what we're seeing play out really reflects that it's a very fraught moment politically on capitol hill when it comes to funding actually a different conflict, which is the war in ukraine. The war in Ukraine yeah, that's right, so I think to really understand the dynamic of what's going on here. You have to look back to a couple of weeks,
though, when President Biden gave an address in the oval office good evening, my fellow americans were facing an inflection point in history. One of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come, making the case, essentially that it is imperative that america sends aid to Israel and continues to send aid to ukraine as well. You know of the assault on Israel that goes nearly twenty months of war tragedy and brutality inflicted on the people of ukraine, and so in that address, he's really linking these two conflicts together, he's linking together the importance of aiding both israel and ukraine. Hamas input represent different threats, but they share this in common. They both want to completely annihilated neighboring democracy, completely annihilated.
And tying. Those two together is a really important piece of his pitch american values. Are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with, to put all that at risk? We walk away from ukraine return our backs on Israel. It's just not worth it,
The case he is really making in that speech was that this is an important moment for america to lead to show that we support our allies and that we support our allies crucially and standing up to
I rents and terrorists abroad as wide a more I'm gonna send to congress and urgent budget requests to fund america's nasa security needs to survive
We are critical partners, including Israel and ukraine. I remember that speech. I were watching it
and the idea was kind of american leadership is what holds the world together. If Putin wins that
will only emboldened Hamas. These things are all connected, but why did Biden feel the need to tie the two together like? Why was that important to do in the speech or its two things? One is exactly the ideology that you just articulated. That is something that the white house truly believe.
But it is also nodding to a political reality on the hill that has really complicated efforts to continue sending aid to ukraine, and that is among house republicans. Funds
ukraine continuing to send military aid to kiev has become a politically toxic issue for o sizeable number of lawmakers and their voters, and so from the white house is perspective by linking together funding for Israel, which has strong support in washington right now, along with funding for ukraine, the hope in the bible administration is that they can get more of these ukraine sceptics onboard, ok, so katy, let's dig into that. So you just told me a growing number of house republicans no longer want to fund ukraine so break that down. For me,
I think that this is part of a larger trend that we started to see. Honestly, when former president donald trump came into office, which was really the idea among republicans that the idea of american leadership around the globe when it comes to foreign wars was actually not a positive thing that, if the u s is spending money, it should
be benefiting americans rather than people abroad, but I think we really saw this crystallize when it comes to the war in ukraine over the past year or two, and you know something I travel across the country, a fair amount
go to congressional town halls town halls. The lawmakers have an almost every single time. I have been to a town hall in a deeply conservative district congressional district without fail, you will hear,
constituents extremely angry at the idea of. If I'm having trouble
For my medication, if I'm having trouble putting dinner on the table for my family, why are we sending all of this money over to another country? And so that is something that lawmakers republican lawmakers tell me that they
we are all of the time that they have really metabolized, and you know at the beginning of the war, we heard a lot of rhetoric from house republicans saying you know: Putin is a tyrant. We can't allow this to happen. You know we're praying for those in ukraine, but the longer that this war has dragged out. We've heard less and less of that and we've heard more and more questions about. What's the end game here, how much
can. We really be expected to send over there and a lot of it is really motivated by what their hearing from their constituents I mean. It makes sense to some extent right because in with a counterfeit,
in ukraine has been going on for months. The ukrainians haven't taken much territory, and you know it's hard to get people excite
about dumping a lot more money into what is, from their perspective, a losing battle.
yeah. I think there's also a lot of ptsd
Voters with respect to the wars,
middle east, Afghanistan, Iraq. I talk to some republican holsters who have looked at this issue and what we also see in the
all is that funding ukraine in it with every month essentially becomes a little less popular among republican voters and, of course, republican lawmakers, particularly those for reelection. Every two years want to be extremely responsive
at an increasingly do not want to be seen taking an up or down vote on the house floor. Sending billions of dollars
to another country and katie. Just to be clear, this logic of not wanting to send foreign aid to ukraine, you know that the constituents are talking about. Why doesn't it apply to sending foreign aid to Israel in this moment for house republicans yeah, you know it's a really complicated answer, but the bottom line for a lot of these republican lawmakers who are against continuing
to send money to keep but feel comfortable or in fact, support. Sending money to Israel is that they simply see Israel is being different. They see it is a long time ally of the united states, one that, because of sort of historical background, is important to support, and so when they think about their support for Israel, it's a completely different calculation than when their thinking about ukraine. So basically, this Biden measure was kind of his way of trying to salvage funding for ukraine by riding on the coattails of this sky. High support that Israel has in washington basically saying to republicans you, don't you guys, I know a lot of you are really sure about supporting ukraine anymore, but you can't say no to Israel right here, that's right, but what you see from speaker Johnson, is that not only does he defy that request by deciding that he is going to put just a stand alone, israel bill on the floor, but he actually
moves to further spite democrats on this vote, and what we see in this bill is that he adds a provision to the bill that says in order to pay for fourteen billion dollars of new spending and emergency aid for Israel that they're going to take back,
fourteen billion dollars that congress previously had passed to help bulk up the irs so that it could recoup more tax money, and that has the added benefit of being good politics for the republican conference, because republicans hated that landmark bill that president Biden pass the inflation production act.
And, while speaker Johnson says that he added this provision simply as a nod to fiscal responsibility. We actually see him in interviews sort of their democrats, wink democrats and say
you're, gonna have to show us who you'd rather support Israel or iris agents. So this move right off the bat infuriates democrats and that anger only grows when the congressional budget office, which is a non partisan budget office, comes out and says actually this bill. This offset that sucre Johnson has been touting actually is going to grow. The deficit is actually not financially responsible at all, because the government is going to lose so much money from tax revenue. So Democrats are basically like no way
I mean look, it's a tough vote for a lot of them, because a lot of them do not want to be seen as doing anything to undermine Israel, particularly at this fraught moment, but essentially the bill that speaker Johnson created for them to vote on end up becoming toxic for most of them. And, of course, as you said, that bill was dead on arrival in the senate, which is of course, control by democrats. That's right hours before
how's even took its vote. Senator truck humor, the majority leader said that the senate wouldn't even entertain the house past bill that the Senate wouldn't even try to amend it somehow and that senators would instead craft their own legislation to fund both ukraine and israel.
And the interesting twist here really is that, while over in the house, we saw republicans and democrats bitterly divided over this bill. Crafted by speaker Johnson over in the senate, there's actually kind of a rare meeting of the mines among Senate republicans, Senate democrats and the white house when it comes
steel, ukraine, funding, which is they want to keep helping our allies in kiev, and that sets up what is likely to be a bitter rift within the republican party in the weeks to come,
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Listen wherever you get your podcast, so katy. You said that there's a split among republicans in congress on this question of war funding for ukraine, even house republicans oppose it, but the Senate republicans actually support it. So
Tell me about that here. That's right! Obviously, there are a handful of exceptions, but largely what we ve seen as that house republicans view. This issue is being thoroughly toxic for them among their voters, whereas Senate republicans,
many of them are really more sort of in the old school style of establishment Republican who believes in sort of a muscular us military presence abroad.
believes in the idea of the? U s being a leader on the global stage and really sort of all of those viewpoints are most clearly personified and the leader of the Senate republican conference Mitch Mcconnell, who has been really the most vocal republican on the issue of the importance of continuing
to send aid to ukraine, so miss MC connell's tying the two together in the same way, that Biden is right: Israel in ukraine and funding for them. That's a real contrast with the new guard and the house: that's pretty opposed to: u S, interventionism and you know kind of less interested overall in foreign policy
In foreign wars, absolutely Mcconnell sees this as being, I think, one of the most important political fights that is currently on the world stage. He has really taken it upon himself and I think he sees this partially as something that he wants to build into his
legacy is someone who may retire in the years to come simply because of his age, and so he has really been travelling across the united states across the globe to try to make the case to republican politicians and republican voters that sending aid to ukraine is a worthwhile investment, and he has also been remarkably candid about how
he is concerned by this sort of rising wave of isolationist feeling and-
The one party I went in and talked with him in his office may of last year, and essentially what he said to me was not exactly in these words was: I wanted to show the world that the republican conference, the Senate republican conference, does not adhere to the isolationists viewpoints of former president donald trump, and you know for any one who covers Mcconnell. Those were such strikingly candid words coming from him. I honestly nearly fell out of my chair when he said that, but I think this all points to the idea that he views this as an existential battle that he is willing to lay his own personal capital down on the line for, and so this campaign for, Mcconnell really picks up in the last couple of weeks from sheriff's report for your brain contribute expensive moore
wouldn't priority. But, as I said everytime, I start the chance. It's a false choice. He speaks in Kentucky his home state, of course, with the ukrainian ambassador. To make the case of why we should send more aid to kiev path toward greater security, for all of us is simple,
help ukraine, when the war
and pretty much every single day. On the senate floor, he uses his daily speech, emotion, that this money is shrugged from american security priorities. We ve gone from
to again make the argument that, in fact, the fight in Israel is intertwined with the fight in ukraine, and we have to fund both that it would be folly to think that somehow they're not connected showed the risk of repeating myself, detroit asian, american or allied, serious and they're intertwined. If we ignore that fact, we do show that are on parole and that congress again must find both israel and ukraine. Now is not the leader of the free world to go to sleep okay, but he can't tell the house republic
since what to do right, I mean, after all, he is a senator like how much does his position actually matter, given the fact that the geo p in the house does what it wants and really has been kind of its own gas agent of late coil? Look, I think that he sees and accurately so that he does have a bully pull that as the republican leader and the senate, and it is clear that he is trying to use that to advance
this argument that america should continue helping our allies and Keith. That being said, I think you're right sabrina that there are a number of house republicans who view him as being insufficiently conservative, who don't necessarily want to take his advice for that reason, on what legislation they should pass. A number of house republicans in the ascendant far right of
the republican house republican conference. You him as a wry now witches republic, men in name only exactly sort of the most arises of label. You can slap on another republican, and so what that means is that Mcconnell leverage really stays in the senate is about keeping his own conference of Senate republicans united around this idea of funding, both ukraine and israel, and this matters, because eventually these two chambers are going to have to negotiate or compromise or can come to some sort of version of legislation that they both can agree on. Passing and look when it comes to negotiations, the senate will build up a lot of leverage if they have a big block of bipartisan votes. For one bill to fly,
and both ukraine and israel. So then, how likely is it that this effort to get the house behind funding for ukraine will actually succeed? While there are a number of different strategies? I think that both Senate democratic
since the white house, and maybe even senate republicans, are eyeing in an attempt to get house republicans just swallow this bill that they really would prefer not to one is that we are coming up against a government funding deadline at the end of next week. So I think, there's one school of thought that maybe you try to just rule all of this up into one big bill, a bill that keeps the government open that funds, Israel,
all, and that also funds, ukraine. It's the idea of sugar to make the medicine go down, but in this time it's also keeping the government open, which republicans don't really want to shut down right now. So that is one option and, of course, all routes led back through speaker MIKE Johnson right. So what does that mean for the fate of all of this? While there are a couple of different dynamics at play here, one is that you have to remember that he is the very freshly elected speaker and that the speaker before him, Kevin Mccarthy, was pushed out of the speakers office because he put two critical bills on the house floor for a vote and used democratic votes to push them through. You have to imagine those are two lessons that he's thinking a lot about right now. At the same time and some of the public comments he has made, he has expressed openness to may be trying to pare ukraine funding with border security funding. So.
He's showing some signs of flexibility there, but again it is potentially very treacherous path that he is about to walk down with really no experience so look I mean this has been a crazy congress with a lot of twists and turns. I dont want to predict how this is going to end. I do think at the end of the day, this is an issue that is so important for the white house for schumacher from economies. Even for a handful of republicans over in the house, I have to believe that they find some way to pass this to get this aid for ukraine through and across the finish line, but I think,
it's going to be a pretty bitter and messy battle. And, of course, aid to ukraine is about a lot more than just another fight in congress. Right it's about the biggest war in europe since world war, two that was started by russia and preventing a critical us. How ai ukraine from losing it
and you know, we're coming to a moment in the war where it looks like there is actually a danger of that the top commander,
generals illusionary, he told the economist magazine last week that his army was at a stalemate like he actually use that word. He said there be no quote deep and beautiful breakthrough
like he'd been hoping and reality is, american funding has been keeping ukraine afloat in a pretty significant way. So, the? U S, doesn't continue it. Ukraine's fight against russia could actually collapse. I mean not immediately, but it would happen.
Well your rights brunette, and it's not only operationally important but its symbolically important right. If the? U S, pulls its support than potentially you have other european country sang while, if the? U S, isn't shipping, and why should reach a Ben? I was actually reporting in germany for a few months over the summer and at the end,
interviews with german politicians, I would say: is there anything about? U S, politics, that I can tell you about her, that you're interested in and without fail. People would ask me about the fate of funding for ukraine if, when publicans were to take the white house in twenty twenty four, if a Republican was too
into the white house and twenty twenty five and in a lot of their minds. I think that was going to be the moment where they had to fear that may be the plug would be pulled on ukraine funding. I think a lot of them have been surprised now to see that that debate actually has come far earlier than the anticipated right.
that patients for ukraine and funding ukraine could be running out sooner than european allies expected and, of course, that's exactly what putin was counting right. Our colleagues reported multiple times. This is a leader who understands the his competitive advantage is waiting out the west, the he will always care more than the west about ukraine, and the west eventually will lose interest in. It looks like maybe that's what starting to happen here. That's right, and that is really the challenge for mac hot, all and other republican members of
guess who want to sustain the flow of aid to give em of something that I'm sure they are hearing from their european counterparts. All the time, which is the idea of you ass, choosing to now choke off the aid that it sends to kiev is simply a frightening prospect in wood in some ways prove Vladimir putin right the track. Katy. Thank you think he's arena.
we'll be right back.
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took the witness stand for the first time in a civil trial in new york in which he is accused of significantly inflating his net worth to defraud banks and insurers trump
the leading republican contender for the presidency brought a combative campaign style energy to the court room. In roughly four hours of testimony, he attacked new york's attorney general politician James, who brought the case as a quote political hack. He derided the proceedings as unfair and he scolded the judge overseeing the case, who, for his part, appealed to trumps lawyer to rein in the
for president saying quote: this is not a political rally, and these really military set its forces had split the Gaza strip in two after a night of heavy airstrikes, a move that Israel said would make it more difficult for hamas to control the enclave
is really officials made the announcement after two israeli columns surrounded gaza city, which is densely populated and in the northern half of the Gaza strip, effectively cutting it off from the south is really officials have described the city as a Hamas stronghold. Also, the Gaza health ministry announced its latest casualty figures stating that in the past month is really airstrikes have killed more than ten thousand people in Gaza. Today's episode was produced by robert zip code, Carlos per yedo.
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