President Biden will
sign a $95 billion foreign aid package
that has critical
US allies breathing a sigh of relief.
The Senate
overwhelmingly passing the measure
which provides
needed funding to Israel,
Ukraine and Taiwan.
We tell our allies, we stand with you.
We tell our adversaries,
don't mess with us.
We tell the world
the United States will do everything
to safeguard democracy
and our way of life.
Also included in the bill,
the first sale, effectively
a ban on TikTok.
President Biden has said that he plans
to sign the bill today
shortly after the vote.
Republican leader
Mitch McConnell has been
one of the strongest advocates
in Washington
offered this stark assessment
of why
many in his party had turned on Ukraine.
I think the demonization
of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson,
who, in my opinion,
ended up where
he should have been all along,
which was interviewing Vladimir Putin,
where he should have been all along
interviewing Vladimir Putin.
Let's bring in our panel, Ron
Brownstein, senior editor
at The Atlantic, Matt
Gorman, former senior adviser
to Tim Scott's presidential campaign.
And you care who is Pfizer, too,
Senator Bernie Sanders. Welcome all.
Ron Vladimir
Putin, Tucker Carlson, Mitch McConnell
walk into a bar question mark. Yeah.
Who's missing in that sentence?
Donald Trump.
I mean. Sure.
Tucker Carlson
ended up where
he should have been interviewing
Vladimir Putin.
But Mitch
McConnell is kind of punching down
and kind of ignoring the
elephant,
I guess, at the party in the room,
which is Donald Trump
and Donald Trump's
demonization of Ukraine.
His resistance to
this, although Trump in the end, I mean,
I think
in the end he was hands off,
but certainly his opposition.
You know, it's interesting.
I think was Eric Schmidt,
the senator from from Missouri,
who pointed out on the first vote
when the Senate
when a majority Senate
Republicans voted against this
as a standalone,
that virtually
everyone elected to the Senate,
every Republican elected Senate
after 2018 voted against it. Right.
Basically the Republicans
in the Trump era.
Yeah.
Are are,
you know,
dubious of America's traditional role
There are still obviously
a piece of the Republican Party
that is supportive of that.
But the direction of the party
in the Trump era is towards
skepticism about America.
As kind of the Reaganite leader
of the free world.
And that,
I think, adds
to the pressure of those center
right suburban Republican voters
who have felt more and more marginalized
in the Trump era.
Metformin,
I mean, to just to pick up on on Ron's
point there,
I mean, is this an inevitable shift?
Because
there is this possibility
that we just continue going down
that when Mitch McConnell on his way out
right now that said, Mike Johnson
also a Trumpian,
you know,
a Republican in the Trump
mold, started getting intelligence
briefings and said, oh, wait, yeah,
we need to do this.
Look, I think about 50 or so of those.
112 Republicans
in the House that voted against
this were part of the vote
no but hope yes kind of caucus,
if you will.
I think for a really true test
on where
this stood, at least in the House.
Look to that
Marjorie Taylor Greene amendment
that would have zeroed out all Ukraine
and how about 71 people
I think it's a fairly accurate prediction
but I think
like most things in the Trump era
it didn't fundamentally
flip everything on its head.
It accelerated things
that were already coming.
We saw sort of this bubble
up ten years ago with Syria.
No, the Rand Paul wing of the party.
That's where this came up.
This has been percolating and bubbling
ever since the end of Iraq or so.
The Bush years is where the rubber hits
the road.
It's been kind of a
theme in American history.
Right. I mean,
look, famously,
the battle
between the isolationists
of the internationalist wings
of the Republican Party was settled
in 1952
when Dwight Eisenhower beat
isolationist Robert Taft
for the nomination.
And over the next 60 years,
in every Republican
presidential administration,
the internationalist forces dominated.
Even when Trump was elected,
there was
still that kind of history
and muscle memory
that influenced his own administration.
And there was a lot of resistance
to his criticism of Naito
and his kind of pulling back
on that traditional role.
And I
think with Mike Johnson,
you did see more of that
kind of resurface
than you might have expected
in this fight.
But overall, the general trajectory
is that
that part of the party is receding.
The isolationist
Trumpian nationalist J.D.
Vance part is ascending, and if you are a
just under like an
in polarized
Chicago Council on Global Affairs,
just under half of Republicans,
Republican voters
say they support an aggressive role
for America in the world.
They are now the minority
and they have to face
the reality
that on most issues,
the party is going to continue to evolve
a way not toward for them.
I thought it was interesting.
Jonathan Martin of Politico,
a really richly reported piece
about how we have. Yes, exactly.
And it was about how Mike Johnson lobbied
Trump, so to speak,
and how the Republicans
lobbied Trump to you.
Could I agree
that you could have killed this bill
if you wanted
to, to stay on the sidelines?
And it was an interesting piece.
It was essentially saying, you know,
President Trump,
if you are elected
and you let them sack
succeed,
you will enter office in chaos in Europe.
And it was obviously convincing.
Well, and in that in that piece
Jonathan Martin at Politico
also writes
about foreign leaders who were lobbying
Donald Trump,
the British foreign prime
minister, David Cameron,
he writes,
also made the Palm Beach pilgrimage.
You went down to Mar
a Lago and underscore
that Europe actually was making
this financial commitment
and they had made a commitment to Ukraine
They say it's
he writes, it was also no coincidence.
Cameron and foreign ministers of Germany
and Italy cut a video.
Good way to talk to Trump
from the G7 foreign ministers conference.
Last week where they emphasize this need.
And as significant,
the Polish president Duda made his own
well-timed trek
to see Trump, this time
at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Used a lengthy Wednesday dinner
last night
to discuss Europe doing more
for Ukraine
and Putin's expansionist appetites.
So, I mean,
this clearly also demonstrates
that these leaders are preparing
for Donald Trump
to potentially be elected again.
But this bill also included aid
for Israel,
which is contentious
on the Democratic side.
What do you see here?
Yeah, that's right.
Senator Sanders, for whom I know manage
a presidential campaign,
voted against this
and on specifically because of Israel
and the US-Israel relationship,
I think is
one of the most struggling points
right now, because I think most of
I think a vast majority of Democrats
within the Democratic Party
are wanting some accountability
for Netanyahu's actions.
And that when you have the wanton
killing of what,
30,000 plus civilians in Gaza
without any sense of
is there accountability
when you go over the line
from an American government
now with now
that President Biden
has gotten the funding,
I think a lot of progressives,
a lot of people in the Democratic Party
are going to say,
okay, so we've got the funding now.
It doesn't have to flow
without condition.
What are you going to do to institute
some conditions? Use that as leverage.
That's this
that this is now that point
for President Biden to show, hey,
yeah, I got money
in my pocket to give to you
with some strings.
Attached and change
in the behavior of Israel.
You know,
there is a day on the calendar
circle May 8th,
which is the day that
the Biden administration
has to report to Congress
whether Israel is using the arms
we are sending in accordance
with international law
and also
whether they are impeding the flow
not only of aid directly from the US,
but from international organizations
that we support.
That was part of an earlier deal
with Senate Democrats
who opposed unconditional aid.
The administration is going to certify
and that would be another flash point
on the kind of conditions
they face we're talking about.
Very interesting.