Republicans Now Literally Filibustering Military Spending
How far Republicans have fallen.
President Biden and congressional Democrats proposed another round of funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Congressional Republicans refused to pass it unless it was tied to also changing the law to reduce illegal immigration.
Democrats agreed. Republicans sent Republican negotiators to work out the details of such a deal with Democrats.
The negotiated deal was unveiled, in which Democrats would give up more than they could normally be expected to give up in terms of immigration policy, in exchange for finally giving our allies some aid.
Trump came out against the deal, what the Republicans had argued for all along, for months—
The Senate’s emergency defense funding package was delayed for months while negotiators tried to hash out a compromise on new funding and policy reforms to tighten border security — something Johnson insisted on when he met with Biden and other congressional leaders at the White House last month.
—what Republican negotiators had spent weeks working out in detail.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) joked later that if Lankford couldn’t get a deal done, then “Moses couldn’t get a deal done. He’s one of the most kindest, compassionate people I’ve met in my lifetime.”
His fellow negotiators described him as an earnest, smart legislator who was willing to spend long hours digging into the intricacies of immigration law — and spent weeks away from his family in the process. Murphy said senators often negotiate the broad policies and let staff do the “dirty work” of putting the ideas into legislative text.
“James does both,” Murphy said. “It’s a sign of how sincere he is and how in the weeds he is on policy. But it probably means he’s maybe a little less attuned to the politics.”
The Oklahoma Republican has spent three days desperately trying to explain the bill after many of his colleagues put out statements opposing it without even reading the full text. Some Republicans released misleading statements about what it would do, claiming it was designed to let more people into the country. Trump, who has said he doesn’t want to give Democrats a win on the issue, gleefully bragged that he helped kill it.
Republicans killed the bill, even some of those who had been part of negotiating the compromise in the first place, like Mitch McConnell
In the end, all but four Republicans voted against moving forward on the legislation — including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had delegated Lankford to negotiate the bill combining Ukraine aid and border security and had been closely involved in the negotiations.
and Lindsey Graham.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally who helped sink the border compromise despite initially participating in the negotiations, also conceded pessimism about the future of immigration legislation, even if the GOP wins House and Senate majorities in this year’s elections and the former president is victorious in his rematch with Biden. “He had four years and we were unable to pass anything,” the South Carolina Republican lamented in brief remarks to The Dispatch.
Only four Republicans voted for the package with the border deal: Sen. James Lankford (Okla.), who was the lead GOP negotiator who put it together, Romney, and Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).
Senate Democrats proposed aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, without the border deal attached—what Democrats had been proposing in the first place.
Republican senators, including not only infamous fraud Rand Paul but also sometimes thoughtful and principled reformer Mike Lee, literally filibustered military aid to Ukraine.
(A “talking filibuster”, it’s sometimes called, distinguishing it from less literal filibusters.)
Republican Mitt Romney observed,
“I know that shock jocks and online instigators have riled up many in the far reaches of my party, but if your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position.”
“We are not being asked to send American troops into war, only to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. If we fail to help Ukraine, Putin will invade a NATO nation. Ukraine is not the end, it is a step—and letting Putin have his way with Europe would jeopardize our security.”
Republican leader Mitch McConnell argued for a clear-eyed understanding of our responsibility, and for acting responsibly:
“I know it’s become quite fashionable in some circles to disregard the global interests we have as a global power. To bemoan the responsibility of global leadership. To lament the commitment that has underpinned the longest drought of great power conflict in human history,” he said in a powerful floor speech Sunday, referring to the growing influence of isolationists within the Republican Party.
“This is idle work for idle minds. And it has no place in the United States Senate,” he said in a rebuke of Republican colleagues who threw up all sorts of procedural obstacles to derail the bill.
And yet most Senate Republicans ultimately voted against it. It passed with almost all Democratic senators voting in favor, but fewer than half of Republicans.
Now it goes to the House, where the Republican majority will again kill it.
Even if the aid bill eventually passes the Senate, it faces uncertainty in the House of Representatives. Dozens of Republican House members, particularly those most closely allied with former President Donald Trump, have voted against Ukraine aid, including Speaker Mike Johnson.
While lawmakers have approved more than $110 billion for Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, Congress has not passed any major aid for Kyiv since Republicans took control of the House in January 2023.
At some point, Trump said “We’re paying for NATO and we don’t get so much out of it,” and called for our enemies to attack our allies:
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense in a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the alliance if reelected.
to which the (Democratic) White House replied:
“Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged – and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home,”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, said Sunday that Trump’s comments about the alliance put European and American soldiers at risk.
“Any attack on NATO will be met with a united and forceful response,” Stoltenberg said in a statement. “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”
European Council President Charles Michel on Sunday described comments from Trump on NATO “reckless,” adding they “serve only Putin’s interest.”
Compare Trump’s words to what another top Democratic leader, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, said last week:
“This bill is essential for our national security, for the security of our friends in Ukraine, in Israel, for humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza, and for Taiwan.”
“The entire world is going to remember what the Senate does in the next few days. Nothing—nothing—would make Putin happier right now than to see Congress waver in its support for Ukraine; nothing would help him more on the battlefield.”
Contrast again the latest Republican thinking, from this congressman:
[NPR, STEVE INSKEEP:] And now the United States is providing less and less, and Ukrainians are short of ammunition while fighting one of the largest militaries in the world. And I'm hearing you saying you still need to negotiate a solution to the many years old border problem before you're willing to give any more funding to Ukraine. Is that right?
[REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN] HARRIS: That's right. . . .
INSKEEP: You said that $60 billion, which is the amount in the Senate bill, is too much, but that you would be willing to support some funding for Ukraine. Do you want to put a number on the table that would be fine with you?
HARRIS: Yeah, I do. I think that, you know, Congress is in session 12 months out of the year. There's no reason we have to pass a bill that provides support for three years, as this bill does. We should pare it down to maybe $10 billion of the most necessary aid, combine that with some border policy, and then revisit the issue as we see how the war there progresses over the next several months with that aid package and move forward with that.
The Republican is saying, Let’s pass much smaller bills much more frequently—but Ukraine aid has already been delayed for months, thanks to congressional Republicans’ bad-faith “negotiating”; at this rate, by the next time we manage to pass anything, they’ll have lost the war, and the only aid we’ll be able to send them is for body bags. Even then, if Republicans get their way, at this point they’ll cut costs by just sending them garbage bags.
Again, it's not putting American servicemen in harm's way; it's spending money on military equipment, much of it manufactured in America by Americans, to send to our ally whom we promised to defend—to keep our promises to a friend—while also draining the military strength of one of our biggest geopolitical enemies, which also happens to be a murderous dictatorship. It's not a difficult call.
Not to put too fine a point on it, these suddenly fashionable post-liberty Republicans are all for "industrial policy", heavy government involvement to promote American jobs and American industry, sometimes on a theory that in so doing they promote American national security—i.e., this is exactly the kind of spending they would be in favor of, any other time—except when it means actually keeping our promises and taking action in the world. Rubio, for example, voted against.
If anyone had told me a couple of decades ago that in the so near future, Republicans would have so forcefully assumed the role of surrender caucus, and Democrats would be the ones arguing for military spending at home or military aid abroad, almost the only ones willing to speak up for those in danger abroad and virtues like courage and responsibility at home—I don’t know what I would have said. It would have been unthinkable.
Republicans should be concerned that when they have become the unthinkable, voters too might do the unthinkable.
I’m told that in the Cold War, many Americans who were otherwise not normally in favor of the Republican party—Democratic voters who preferred a larger welfare state, for example—were willing to make an exception to support Ronald Reagan’s and others’ efforts to increase military spending, strengthen national defense, and win the Cold War. I gather they were called—Reagan Democrats? Cold War Democrats?
It’s not even unthinkable any more, really. What were the reasons for us conservatives to vote Republican in the first place? Smaller government, greater liberty, reducing dependence on government, facing the looming crisis of the federal debt? Led by Trump, Republicans have become the second party of larger government, less liberty, demagoguing any attempt to reform entitlement spending, and pretending the bill for the debt never comes due.
The pro-life movement, the movement to abolish abortion? Indeed the conservative movement worked patiently and diligently for decades on the related project of reforming the judiciary back in a more originalist direction, overcoming decades of leftward judicial activism, restoring the judiciary to its proper role. While much work remains to be done, it’s fair to say that this project has already largely succeeded. With the successful overturning of Roe vs. Wade, fifty years later, much of the logic for single-minded (or single-issue) devotion to voting Republican is also gone. Trump himself now blames the pro-life movement for the unpopularity of the party he remade in his image, and indicates his and the party’s efforts at pro-life reform should have ended with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Maybe it’s time for the pro-life movement to take him at his word and part ways.
There may be reasons left to vote Republican, somewhere. But surprisingly, not being the hippie antiwar caucus is no longer one of them.