Something for Everybody on Ukraine

Plus: Trump's triad of troubles this week.

This is not a drill—Ukraine aid is moving: 

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he strongly supports a proposal from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending crucial bipartisan support to the precarious effort to approve $95 billion in funding for the U.S. allies this week.

Before potential weekend voting, Johnson was facing a choice between potentially losing his job and aiding Ukraine. He notified lawmakers earlier Wednesday that he would forge ahead despite growing anger from his right flank. Shortly after Johnson released the aid proposals, the Democratic president offered his emphatic support for the package.

“The House must pass the package this week, and the Senate should quickly follow,” Biden said. “I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed.” Happy Thursday.

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Something for Everybody

The weird thing about the Ukraine aid situation is that pretty much everybody involved is going to get what they want.

House Speaker Mike Johnson gets to stand up to the bullying of his hard-right members who’ve demanded he get in line while indulging in a little biography-padding: “Look, history judges us for what we do,” he told reporters yesterday. “I can make a selfish decision and do something that is different, but I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing . . . I’m willing to take personal risk for that.”

The White House finally gets the aid package it’s been beseeching Congress to pass for months.

Pro-Ukraine, pro-Johnson House Republicans finally get the package they want, and get to blow off some steam at the nihilists too: “I guess their reasoning is that they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the speaker over it,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw told reporters. “I mean, that’s a strange position to take. And, you know, I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

House Democrats get to swoop in and save Johnson’s skin when those nihilists inevitably try to depose him, tilting the narrow balance of congressional power a bit farther in their direction.

But it’s important to note the nihilists are getting what they want, too. Not in terms of outcome: They’re likely to fail to block Ukraine aid this weekend, and they’re likely to fail to depose Johnson over it after that. But they get to play starring roles once again in their favorite stage production: The Washington Establishment Has Betrayed You And I’m The Only One You Can Trust.

Matt Gaetz is blustering around the GOP conference, wagging a threatening finger and pledging to “personally campaign against any lawmaker who voted for Ukraine aid.” Marjorie Taylor Greene is filing wild amendments to the Ukraine bill, including one that would compel “any member of Congress who votes in favor of this Act” to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” and another that would use “funds made available by this act” to develop “space laser technology on the southwest border.” Don’t try to tell us these guys aren’t having fun.

There’s only two real losers here: Russia, and those anti-Ukraine Republicans not politically savvy enough to use this moment to further juice their e-celebrity among the MAGA base. Pour one out this morning for Rep. Tim Burchett.

—Andrew Egger

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Trump’s Triad of Troubles

Good things come in threes, they say. But don’t they also claim that bad luck comes in threes? Can both be true? Or do things generally just tend to happen in threes?

I don’t know. But I do think there have been three pretty striking developments in the last week or so that may portend trouble in 2024 for Donald Trump.

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The first is the battle over abortion rights in Arizona. First Trump says that he’s decided that, post-Dobbs, the issue of abortion should be left to the states. Then the Arizona Supreme Court reinstates an 1864 abortion ban, with only a life of the mother exception. Then the Republican-controlled Arizona legislature meets and proves incapable, in the midst of much hubbub, of coming to any agreement about what, if anything, is to replace the 1864 law.

The upshot: a chaotic week focused on the issue of abortion and the role of the courts. Was the fact that the Trump Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in danger of slipping voters’ minds? Arizona has served as a reminder.

And what happens in Arizona isn’t staying in Arizona. Will Trump nationally, and other Republican elected officials and candidates, handle the issue any better going forward? Abortion rights were on the ballot in key states in 2022, to the disadvantage of the Republican party. The issue could be central to national politics in 2024 as well.

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The second recent development is Trump’s hush money trial in New York City. Many people—I was one—were skeptical that this would prove to be a good occasion or venue to bring to center stage the issue of his criminality.

But I may have been wrong. Reading accounts of jury selection so far, hearing about Trump sitting and scowling at the defendant’s table, with a sense beginning to sink in that we could actually see Trump in a month or two being found guilty of a crime by a jury of his peers in a court of law—I’m open to the possibility this trial could make a difference. (Of course, if Trump gets a hung jury, things would presumably bounce politically in another direction.) But suddenly it feels as if there’s a real chance that the proceedings at 100 Center Street in lower Manhattan could make the theme of Trump’s criminality more prominent in 2024 than some of us expected.

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Third, there’s Ukraine, or rather the domestic politics of Ukraine, and more precisely the intra-Republican politics of support for Ukraine. Trump hasn’t so far seemed to pay any political price for the fact that he’s at odds with the majority of the American people—and with many Republicans—on the questions of supporting Ukraine, opposing Putin, and valuing NATO.

Could this change now that the Republican speaker of the House is conspicuously, even dramatically, advancing the Ukraine legislation? He’ll have about half of the Republican members of the House joining him in voting for Ukraine aid. Meanwhile Trump’s friend Marjorie Taylor Greene is going berserk. If you’re a Nikki Haley Republican—if, like Speaker Johnson, you consider yourself a Reagan Republican—you’re being reminded this week in a big way that Trump is at odds with you in this important way.

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If you’re a Trump opponent, you’ve wondered for quite a while whether issues like Dobbs, Trump’s criminality, or his views on Ukraine, will make a difference. You’ve worried that he’s seemed unaffected by what would be serious problems for other politicians.

But maybe Trump won’t ultimately be impervious to political gravity?

Maybe this was the week when a trio of issues came to the fore in a way that suggests they might stick? Maybe this was the week when it became plausible to believe that voters might not wish after all to give a second term in the Oval Office to a criminal who would be a threat to their liberties at home and our fellow democracies abroad?

 —William Kristol

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Catching up . . .

• Senate kills articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: CNN

• Arizona GOP blocks another attempt to repeal 1864 abortion ban: NBC News

• Kennedy family members to endorse Biden over RFK Jr.: NBC News

• Trump cuts into Biden’s lead among young people, poll finds: Politico

• Legal fight over Trump Media’s ownership adds to its woes: New York Times

• Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias: Washington Post

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Quick Hits

1. TikTok Ban 2: Electric Boogaloo

The TikTok divestment/ban bill that passed the House last month hadn’t gained much traction in the Senate, which tends to treat slowing down stuff that comes in hot from the lower chamber as something of an institutional responsibility. But now Speaker Johnson is rolling that legislation into the Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid package:

While the new legislation would still require TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to owners that resolved national security concerns, it includes an option to extend the deadline for a sale to nine months from the original six months, according to text of the legislation released by House leadership. The president could extend the deadline by another 90 days if progress toward a sale was being made.

House lawmakers are expected to vote Saturday on a package of legislation that includes the TikTok ban and other bills popular with Republicans, a maneuver intended to induce lawmakers to vote for the foreign aid. If the package passes, the measures will be sent as a single bill to the Senate, which could vote soon after. President Biden has said he’ll sign TikTok legislation into law if it reaches his desk.

Plenty of time for the shine to come off later, but we’re going to enjoy at least this brief flash of Bulwark energy Mike Johnson. (You can read our coverage from last month of the TikTok bill here and here; Andrew also did an episode of The Focus Group with Sarah on the subject a few weeks back.)

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2. The View from AZ

Per the New York Times, Republicans have no 2024 strategic plan for abortion policy, Exhibit 41,028:

The two chambers of Arizona’s State Legislature diverged sharply on Wednesday over whether to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion, capping a chaotic day as legislators and activists sparred over the fate of the Civil War-era ban.

Only hours after Republicans in the State House scuttled another effort to repeal the ban, which was upheld by a State Supreme Court ruling last week, a handful of Republicans in the State Senate sided with Democrats and allowed them to introduce a bill to repeal it.

It will be at least a week before the Senate can vote on the bill, but the matter could be a moot point unless Democrats in the House find a way to get a bill passed there.

The House Republican leadership shows no signs of relenting, despite pressure from prominent Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, to toss the ban that many voters viewed as extreme and archaic.

Arizona Republicans won’t amend the ban, but they also can’t manage to hold together enough to convincingly kill the legislation that would amend it, ensuring legislative wrangling over it will go on for days or weeks. And this November, Arizonans will vote on a ballot initiative that would enshrine a right to abortion until fetal viability in the state constitution, would overrule not just the 1864 law, but also the 15-week ban passed by the state legislature in 2022.

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