The News
Sen. Mitch McConnell received the Star of Ukraine Award from the US-Ukraine Foundation last night — and let loose on Trump and his team.
He said when it comes to deterring adversaries, some of the president’s advisers “don’t seem ready to summon the resources and national will it requires,” and warned “the outcome we’re headed for today is the one we can least afford: a headline that reads, ‘Russia wins, America loses.’”
McConnell has been a steadfast backer of Ukraine but is choosing when to shoot his shots now that Trump is president. The former Senate GOP leader felt the need to respond last night, though, amid nervousness in Europe over Trump’s approach: “When American officials court the favor of an adversary at the expense of allies … [and] when they mock our friends to impress an enemy … they reveal their embarrassing naivete.”
SIGNALS
Republicans in Congress remain divided over Ukraine
Trump’s clashes with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and overtures to Russia have made some congressional Republicans uncomfortable. “I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and US values around the world,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, following last month’s heated Oval Office showdown between Zelenskyy and Trump. Within the administration, views also appear split, Daniel Fried, a former US Ambassador to Ukraine said: More traditional Republicans still believe the US should stick by its traditional allies to counter its adversaries, while the new guard would likely prefer that the US cut deals with rivals to lower the geopolitical temperature.
McConnell ‘abandoned’ by Trump’s GOP
With two years left on the job, McConnell has become one of the lone GOP holdouts voting against Trump’s agenda. He opposed the confirmation of Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and has criticized the GOP’s drift away from its traditional, hawkish foreign policy. “He is eager to demonstrate he has an independent streak and some deep convictions,” Indiana Sen. Todd Young told CNN. “He’s liberated.” The attitude has earned him Trump’s ire, with the president saying McConnell is “not equipped mentally” after the Kentucky senator voted against confirming Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. The former Republican leader has found himself “abandoned” by his own party, which is heading in a radically different direction under Trump, according to a Vanity Fair profile.
McConnell’s foreign policy vision outdated in Trump’s Washington
McConnell’s warnings about the danger of isolationism and his steadfast support for Ukraine and NATO stand in contrast to many Republicans’ embrace of Trump’s ‘America first’ foreign policy approach. “This is the defining, final battle of his career, keeping the party away from this new flirtation with isolationism,” McConnell’s close adviser told Politico. McConnell criticized the “right-wing flirtation with isolation and decline,” in a Foreign Affairs piece in December, making a case for Trump to build his foreign policy on the US’ hard power. But McConnell’s muscular internationalism appears to have a limited appeal to a new generation of conservative foreign policy experts, many of whom hope to prioritize “American interests over maintaining the hegemony of liberal values worldwide.”