Democrats should be deeply grateful to Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader. He has emerged as the strongest defender of President Biden’s worldview: America’s own vital interests depend on supporting our allies in Israel and Ukraine and defending democratic values around the world.
“Enemies abroad will be watching closely and waiting for America to falter,” McConnell warned recently, back home in Kentucky. “Only our concrete and credible support can deter our adversaries in the future and restore security.”
In one sense, Biden and McConnell make odd allies. After all, the GOP leader is despised by Democrats — and rightly so — for his devious and destructive manipulation of the Supreme Court. First, he blocked President Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland to succeed Antonin Scalia in 2016, and then he rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg days before Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
But on foreign policy, McConnell and Biden share an old tradition of cross-party cooperation. “On the domestic side, I can’t think of a single thing I support (that) the Biden administration has done,” McConnell said on Fox. “However, when it comes to foreign policy and defense, I like the way it used to be, where we would get together and try to do the right thing for our country and for our allies.”
The Biden-McConnell alliance will be severely tested in the weeks ahead, as Congress battles over the president’s proposal for $106 billion in emergency aid that includes $14 billion for Israel and $61 billion for Ukraine. The new House speaker, Mike Johnson, reflects a growing Ukraine fatigue in his own ranks and wants to split apart the bill, setting up a direct confrontation with both the White House and his Senate counterpart.
This battle is being fought on many levels, and the first is money, with deficit hawks objecting to the huge sums involved. “We’re not just going to print money and send it overseas,” Johnson said on Fox.
To the Biden-McConnell faction, this is a dangerously shortsighted view that ignores a brutal fact: There is no cheap option here. If Washington does not spend what’s necessary to thwart the invaders now, the cost will be much higher if other tyrants — starting with China — are tempted to take advantage of America’s weak resolve.
“Some say our support for Ukraine comes at the expense of more important priorities,” says McConnell. “But as I say every time I’ve got the chance, this is a false choice. If Russia prevails, there’s no question that Putin’s appetite for empire will actually extend into NATO, raising the threat to the U.S. trans-Atlantic alliance, and the risk of war for us.”
This struggle is about more than money, though — it’s also about a strategic understanding of how the world works. Advocates of splitting apart the aid package fail to grasp the essential connection between the wars in Ukraine and Israel.
A bipartisan letter, signed by Rep. Joe Wilson, a key Republican on Middle East policy, argues that the aid request should not be divided because both Hamas and Russia “seek to defeat and destroy democracies on their borders, both are intended as a first step of conquest, not the last, and both are supported by Iran.”
On a deeper level, Johnson’s attempt to fragment Biden’s proposed legislation — and thus endanger aid to Ukraine — reflects a growing isolationism in Republican ranks, led by Donald Trump. In campaigning for a second term, he’s accusing Biden of putting “America last,” while claiming he will put “America first, every single time.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination, derides this approach as “Donald Trump’s bad worldview” and added on CNN: “He wants to continue to coddle Putin, as he’s done from the minute he became president of the United States.”
Biden outlines a much more robust embrace of our global responsibilities, an approach that echoes an earlier Republican president, Ronald Reagan, who didn’t “coddle” an earlier Russian leader, but visited a divided Berlin and thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
“History has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction,” the president told the nation. “They keep going. And the cost and the threat to America and the world keep rising.”
This unusual but invaluable alliance between the Democratic president and the Republican Senate leader must prevail. America’s own interests — and a safer world — depend on it.
Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at [email protected]. Send comments to [email protected].
