News : How Ukraine split the GOP

Monday, February 28, 2022

How Ukraine split the GOP

Feb 28, 2022

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) speaks to reporters as he walks through the Senate Subway during a series of votes on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) speaks to reporters as he walks through the Senate Subway during a series of votes on Capitol Hill. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

ROMNEYISM ADVANCES, MAGA RETREATS — In the hours after Russia first invaded Ukraine, the GOP responses to the U.S. handling of the aggression tookthree basic shapes: the "establishment" line, which supported a muscular response to Vladimir Putin without directly condemning President Joe Biden; the Blame Putin and Biden camp; and the isolationist MAGA/America First crowd.

And after spending a Trump term on the ropes, the GOP establishment is back on the upswing, for now.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the lone GOP senator to vote to remove Donald Trump from office for withholding military aid from Ukraine, have stepped forward early and vocally on the importance of a tough line against Moscow without going after the current president by name.

For a classic example of the Blame Putin and Biden GOP response, on the other hand, here's House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik: "[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is leading his people and the entire West from the frontlines. Meanwhile Joe Biden is on vacation in his basement bunker in Delaware."

The MAGA/America First position on Putin can vary from minimizing his bad behavior on the world stage (which Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson did ... until the last few days ) to praising the Russian leader in one fashion or another, to disavowing real engagement with geopolitics in the region. Or as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon put it to POLITICO last week, "no one in the Trump movement has any interest at all in the Russian-speaking provinces of eastern Ukraine. Zero."

Yet now, the former president, as well as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), appear to be trying to vault themselves out of the pure MAGA camp and into the more vocally hawkish, anti-Biden/anti-Putin one.

Let's start with Greene. Over the weekend, she appeared at the America First Political Action Conference alongside its white nationalist organizer, Nick Fuentes. Before Greene's remarks, Fuentesasked the audience to give "a round of applause" for Russia during its brutal invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a chant of "Putin" from the crowd in support of Moscow's leader.

As criticism of her appearance began to mount, including from Trump's former secretary of State , Greene sought to distance herself from Fuentes — who has a record of antisemitism and racist rhetoric — albeit not by name. "I won't cancel others in the conservative movement, even if I find some of their statements tasteless, misguided or even repulsive at times," she tweeted.

On its face, Greene's problematic appearance with Fuentes isn't exactly about Russia. Even so, she responded to the first round of weekend scrutiny following her America First remarks by calling Putin a murderer — the sort of direct criticism of Putin that isn't quite visible on her Twitter feed, where the closest she's come recently is citing Ukrainian unity as a model for Americans. Read it as a step away from the pro-Putin MAGA camp toward the Blame Putin and Biden camp.

In a similar vein, she tweeted Thursday that "Americans don't want to be dragged into more never ending foreign wars on another continent no matter how many neocons and neoliberals demand it" after a dig at "the endless violent images of war on TV in a foreign country as Biden's excuse for his FAILED and WEAK policies."

As for Trump, the former president called Putin "smart" during his own CPAC speech this past weekend, days after describing the Russian leader as "savvy." Trump also called the invasion of Ukraine "an outrage and an atrocity," but his basic argument on stage in Florida on Saturday was his motto: "I alone can fix it."

"I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country," Trump said at CPAC.

The tone of Camp One is more straightforwardly anti-Putin, without taking a dig at the current president. When McConnell got pressed on Trump's warm words for Putin last week, he reverted to his longstanding position: "Look, I just told you how I feel about the Russians. Vladimir Putin is a bad guy."

No less an anti-Biden hawk than House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, notably, did not mention the president by name in his own initial response to the Russian invasion. "Putin must be held accountable for his actions," McCarthy said.

It's enough to make Trump look like something less than the putative leader of the GOP.

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What'd I Miss?

— International Criminal Court to open probe into Ukraine crisis: International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan will open an investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Russia's invasion of Ukraine , he said this evening. The ICC chief prosecutor warned Russia and Ukraine on Friday that any act of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity may fall under the jurisdiction of the court and could therefore be investigated by his office.

— Ukrainian pilots arrive in Poland to pick up donated fighter jets: Ukrainian pilots have arrived in Poland to start the process of taking control of fighter planes they expect to be donated by European countries, a Ukrainian government official told POLITICO. The potential transfer of older Russian-made planes to be used in combat against Russian forces could be the most significant moment yet in a wave of promised arms transfers over the past 24 hours that includes thousands of anti-armor rockets, machine guns, artillery and other equipment.

— 500,000+ refugees have fled Ukraine: The mass exodus of refugees from Ukraine to the eastern edge of the European Union showed no signs of stopping , with the U.N. estimating that more than 500,000 people have already escaped Russia's burgeoning war against Ukraine. Long lines of cars and buses were backed up at checkpoints at the borders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and non-EU member Moldova. Others crossed the borders on foot, dragging their possessions away from the war and into the security of the EU.

— FIFA kicks Russia out of the World Cup: World soccer's governing body, FIFA, announced it would suspend Russia indefinitely from international tournaments — expelling it from the World Cup 2022 playoffs one month before the final qualification matches. In a joint statement with UEFA, European football's governing body, FIFA said: "FIFA and UEFA have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice."

A student activist speaks outside as the Supreme Court hears from coal companies and their partisan allies who are trying to gut the Clean Air Act and block climate action.

A student activist speaks outside as the Supreme Court hears from coal companies and their partisan allies who are trying to gut the Clean Air Act and block climate action. | Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for NRDC

— Supreme Court justices lean toward hobbling EPA's climate authority: The Supreme Court today appeared poised to narrow the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to reduce carbon pollution from power plants , a move that could further derail President Joe Biden's ambitious plans to fight climate change that have already suffered setbacks in the Senate. Just hours before the court sat for arguments, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued another dire report warning that the effects of climate change were accelerating, and without steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, extreme weather disasters and rising temperatures could push countries "beyond their ability to adapt.

— Ketanji Brown Jackson to meet with McConnell this week: Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, will hold her first meetings with senators on Wednesday, including the Republican minority leader and the two top senators on the Judiciary Committee . In addition to meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday, Jackson plans to meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told POLITICO. She will also meet with the chair and ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee: Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

— Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, dies: Blum died on Sunday after a protracted fight with cancer, the California senator announced today. Feinstein and Blum have long been one of the most prominent couples in California politics. As Feinstein became the longest-tenured woman in the Senate, Blum spent years serving on the University of California's Board of Regents, which oversees the prestigious public higher education system. Blum reportedly inquired with the Biden administration about a possible ambassadorial post after Feinstein and Blum steadfastly backed Biden's candidacy.

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Nightly Number

11 days

The amount of time until March 11, when California allows schools and child care centers to relax their mask policies, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today. The highly anticipated update, which largely aligns with the accelerated timelines from Washington state and Oregon, caps weeks of speculation over when the Newsom administration would begin to roll back some of the nation's strictest classroom restrictions.

Parting Words

A person exits after casting their ballot at the Moody Community Center in Houston.

A person exits after casting their ballot at the Moody Community Center in Houston. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images

DON'T FORGET THE MIDTERMS — The 2022 midterm elections officially kick off Tuesday in Texas , which will feature 38 congressional races, in addition to a handful of contested primaries for statewide office, Stephanie Murray writes.

Not all of the elections are competitive: 14 House incumbents have no primary opposition at all.

But there's still plenty to watch in the state, starting with Texas' 28th District, where progressives are trying to oust Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in one of the biggest tests of how strong the party's left wing will be this election season.

"We have to do two things. One is take out corporate Democrats, Democrats who are not 100 percent behind the Democratic platform," Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese said. "Two, we need to bolster the ranks of the Congressional Progressive Caucus." Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders ' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, has more than 50 volunteers involved in these three contests.

On the Republican side, there's no shortage of primary challengers running in former President Donald Trump's image, slamming incumbent lawmakers as Republicans-In-Name-Only for appearing disloyal to the former president in the wake of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

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