Congress's failures have given Putin a victory in Washington - opinion

The 118th Congress just did what it does best: nothing. Once again, it waited until the last minute to avoid a government shutdown, and instead of passing a funding bill, it kicked the can down the road once again and left town for another 10-day vacation. The next round of brinkmanship will be in March.

Their failure to act was a gift to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Hamas, and a warning to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel that America can be an unreliable ally.

It would be easy to chalk this up to this dysfunctional Congress’s aversion to bipartisanship, but the reality is this is a result of internecine warfare in the GOP, with Democrats watching from the sidelines.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has said he will not bring the aid bill to the floor unless the Senate adopts the House’s draconian immigration bill, which faces uniform opposition from Democrats and the White House. He is unmoved by warnings that Ukraine urgently needs the assistance as some supplies are reportedly running low and it faces a likely Russian spring offensive.

There is more involved here than the immigration bill. Senators have worked out a bipartisan border deal, but Johnson and his troops have orders to stop it. Apparently, the crisis is not as great or the need as urgent as they’ve been screaming for months. They are even threatening to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (a Jewish immigrant from Cuba) for not doing enough to protect the borders even while they refuse to act.

Former president Donald Trump has given his troops the orders. Even if the Senate Republican leadership, including Trump loyalists like Lindsey Graham, are saying “we can’t get a better deal” even if Trump wins, the word from Mar-a-Lago is kill it. It can wait until next year. Republicans apparently would rather have the problem than the solution. 

“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING” in the House bill, Trump tweeted. Johnson, who said he speaks to Trump “pretty frequently” for guidance, reportedly told President Joe Biden there will be no aid package for Ukraine and Israel until he accepts House terms on the border.

“My answer is NO. Absolutely NOT. This is the hill I’ll die on,” Johnson wrote in a fundraising letter to supporters.

He has another motivation. The hard-right Freedom Caucus and MAGA extremists in his party are threatening to dump him the way they removed his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, for committing the mortal sin of bipartisan cooperation.

 Who benefits from all this?

WHO BENEFITS by blocking critical defense assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan? The answer lies in domestic politics, not the US national interest in a dangerous world.

Hamas is an unintended beneficiary of the House GOP intransigence because the bill includes $14.3 billion for Israel plus $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. 

China benefits, because by blocking $7.4 billion for Taiwan meant to help deter Beijing’s desire to take over the island, Xi gets the impression the US is a fickle ally.

Nor does US-Mexico border security benefit because House Republicans are withholding $13.6 billion for that protection. 

But by far, Russia benefits the most by preventing $61.4 billion for Ukraine’s defense. Incidentally, most of that money goes to US defense contractors, often to replace and upgrade American inventories that were sent to Kyiv.

Another winner, at least in his own mind, is Trump because he would be denying a win for Biden, benefiting some of the autocrats and dictators he most admires, and serving a cold dish of revenge. 

It is a serving of revenge on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his role in Trump’s first impeachment. The Ukrainian leader failed to turn over the dirt on the Biden family that the American president demanded in that “perfect phone call” in exchange for military aid approved by Congress. 

Trump has boasted that Russia wouldn’t have invaded nearly two years ago if he’d been president, and that if is elected, he can end the war quickly. That would be to Putin’s benefit, of course.

Putin makes no secret that a Trump victory in November will “bring happiness” for him. The former president’s criminal indictments are “politically motivated persecution,” he said. He especially appreciates the isolationist approach of Trump’s America First message and salivates at the thought of him carrying out his threats to quit NATO. 

After watching Biden’s vigorous defense of Ukraine, Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said his country wants a president friendlier to Russia.

Putin seeks to restore the Russian/Soviet empire. He’s already taken parts of Georgia, Moldova, and Crimea, and now wants the rest of Ukraine. Poland would likely be next on his drive to create a new Russian empire. 

Most of those states are members of NATO and very nervous about the 2024 US election, and Putin is enamored of a presidential candidate who has threatened to destroy the Euro-American alliance. I was in the Baltics where there were signs that said, “Visit Estonia Before Putin Does”.

Many Republicans support aid to Ukraine but lack the courage to speak up, for fear Trump will target them with his invective or primary opponents.

Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman from Florida, used his MSNBC show, Morning Joe, to launch a scathing attack on his former House colleagues for “giving Putin what he wants.”

“Donald Trump wants to help Vladimir Putin – always has,” Scarborough said, reminding viewers that Trump called Putin’s Ukraine invasion “brilliant.” The 2024 GOP front-runner is “either an agent of Russia or he’s a useful idiot,” Scarborough said.

Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining challenger for the nomination and his former UN ambassador, said: “He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia.” Her “most persistent point of tension” with Trump is his “deep admiration” for Putin, The Washington Post reported.

The president was angry with her for contradicting him after his Helsinki summit, when he said he believed Putin’s denials of election interference over that of US intelligence leaders. She countered by saying: “The truth was the Russians did meddle in our elections.” An unnamed official said Trump was “angry because he didn’t like criticism of Putin. He really did think Putin was his friend.”

The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.