So, as these debates took place behind closed doors, McConnell regularly harped on his remarks. fellow Republican senators with this label and put them on the defensive.
“Then they end up trying to explain how it’s not really about isolationism, and those explanations are always completely inadequate,” McConnell said.
After about seven months of haggling over Ukraine – including an initial foreign aid package supported by just 22 Republicans, less than 45% of McConnell’s caucus – 79 senators voted Tuesday to send the $95 billion plan to defend Ukraine, Israel and their allies in Asia to the White House for signing of President Biden.
McConnell took a well-deserved victory lap as the central GOP figure on Capitol Hill who pushed legislation across the finish line, despite fierce resistance from some Republicans, a tepid approach from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and lukewarm, better yet, support from former President Donald Trump.
Tuesday morning, he delivered a nearly 15-minute keynote speech that captured the scale of the global wave – “The Vacation from History is Over” – and attacked the “misguided fantasies” of the “America First of all “. He took to the third-floor press gallery for a marathon press conference, answering around 20 questions on topics including European security and TikTok, then gave several media interviews.
Overcoming polio as a child, McConnell has always taken a slow and steady approach to his political career, dubbing his 2016 memoir “The Long Game.” But that debate tested the nearly four-decade senator and the leadership of the national Republican Party in ways that, at times, made it seem out of step with modern conservatism.
“I don’t have a lot of specialties, but if I do, it’s long matches, and this match turned out to be a lot longer than I had hoped,” McConnell said.
Starting in September, McConnell, now 82, made it his defining issue and virtually staked his legacy on winning this round of the fight. Almost every day the Senate was in session, he delivered a speech about defending Ukraine and adopting the traditional heavy-handed approach defined by presidents with the last names Reagan and Bush.
He and White House officials debated in late September whether to include any Ukrainian funding in a much-needed government funding bill. When this bill passed, with money for Ukraine, many Senate Republicans joined forces with House Republican leaders to demand that no money go to President Volodymyr Zelensky unless before the border legislation is approved.
So McConnell — who saw the border as a separate crisis but one worthy of special attention — tasked Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) with leading bipartisan discussions on an immigration bill. Trump ultimately declared his opposition to the border bill, thus keeping it a political issue in the fall election. — the talks failed, and by early February, McConnell’s Ukraine efforts seemed doomed.
The Senate leader has seen conservative anti-Ukraine obsession grow over the years. former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who regularly ranted against Zelensky in front of an audience of more than 3 million people. Even after Carlson was fired last year, most GOP presidential candidates followed Trump into the MAGA office. for not wanting to send more money to Ukraine.
“He had a very, very large following, and a large audience of many rank-and-file Republican voters,” McConnell said of Carlson. “Many of my members started hearing what I thought was provable nonsense, as if it were fact, and it metastasized into the presidential race. »
But McConnell never gave up, and he worked with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to maintain the entire package, particularly aid to Ukraine and Israel, knowing that Ukraine had enormous Democratic support and that Israel had massive Republican Party support. They got 70 votes for their bill in mid-February, with no provisions relating to border security. Two weeks later, McConnell announced he would retire as GOP leader at the end of this year, after a record 18 years leading the party.
But with less than half of Republican senators supporting the aid package, McConnell still had work to do. prompting his House counterpart, Johnson, to call for a vote on the Senate bill, as his far-right flank threatened to try to oust him if he included Ukrainian funds in any legislation.
Schumer said he and McConnell strategized before an Oval Office meeting in late February with Biden, Johnson and other congressional leaders, deferring to McConnell as the first to prod the speaker.
“We told him this is the only way to go,” Schumer told Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post in an interview Tuesday.
The prolonged failure of border negotiations and Johnson’s failure of more than two months inaction harmed Ukrainian defenses. But the extra time allowed lawmakers to receive more briefings from military officials and to meet with European allies in Washington and during their trips abroad.
The combined effect, McConnell said, was a noticeable shift within his own State of World Affairs conference.
“I think we had a lot of very healthy conversations about the actual facts,” he said, noting that senators most aligned with “America First” were becoming more marginalized. “More and more people have focused on the nature of the threat and our role in countering it. There were others who, I think, were most concerned about the kind of experience they had at the town hall meetings. But for those who wanted to focus on the facts, it was a compelling argument that we should do what we did.
Johnson’s slight changes to the Senate bill, including a process allowing for four separate votes on the different security components, were deemed acceptable by Biden and Senate leaders.
On Saturday, all four received overwhelming support, with even the vote on Ukraine getting nearly half of the House Republican Party’s votes and a unanimous vote from Democrats.
As the Senate prepared to adopt the new version on Tuesday, Republicans increasingly wanted to place themselves on the right side of history, facing Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
It helped that the Republican Party presidential primary was over and that Trump had recently issued a few statements on Ukraine that seemed neutral. And the alleged The Republican presidential nominee is primarily focused these days on his criminal trials, making it easier for Republicans to vote their conscience.
Republicans like Lankford and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), who both cited procedural reasons for voting against the security aid in February, joined seven other Republicans in voting for yes in Tuesday’s key vote.
“This is clearly in America’s national security interests. It sends the message to the world that America is still the beacon of freedom,” Mullin said in a statement that appeared to be one McConnell himself wrote.
With 31 Republicans now supporting his position, nearly two-thirds of his caucus, McConnell has led the way. “I think we have turned the corner on the isolationist movement,” he said at a post-vote press conference.
An hour later, the Republican Party leader presented a slightly more realistic view of isolationists and their “vacation from history,” a famous phrase penned by George Will after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
“Well, I hope it’s over. I’m not sure one thing will be enough, but it’s a good day,” he said in the interview.
McConnell’s leadership tenure has lasted so long that only seven other Republican senators served with a leader other than Kentucky’s.
He looks forward to no longer being the “designated spear chaser,” a term for how congressional leaders take so many political blows in the name of their caucus. He said his health was good after last year’s freezing spells, which followed a sharp fall in March 2023, and that he intended to complete the final two years of his term free from the burdens of leadership.
“After 18 years of getting beat up and defending everyone, I can’t wait to pursue what I want to pursue and say what I want to say,” McConnell said.
McConnell pledged to continue promoting a “Reagan” vision of foreign policy as “his number one goal for the next two years.”
And after years of ignoring questions shouted by the media as he made the short trip to the Senate from his office, McConnell wants to speak out on the issues of the day like any other rank-and-file senator .
“I might even start hanging around the halls answering questions,” he said. “There are some advantages to not having this job.”
washingtonpost
