House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican LED foreign aid
package yesterday,
according to three sources familiar with the process.
The legislation would include three aid measures with roughly 10s
of billions of dollars for Israel,
Ukraine, Taiwan and allies in the Indo Pacific.
A fourth measure would include national security priorities,
such as seizing Russian assets in the US,
a loan lease program for Ukraine and additional sanctions on
Iran.
Johnson says his preference is to vote on each bill
individually,
but we'll let the chamber decide.
There are precipitating events around the globe that we're all
watching very carefully,
and we know that the world is watching us to
see how we react.
We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the
world like Putin and G and
and in Iran and they're watching to see if America
will stand up for its allies and in our own
interests around the globe.
And we will. Well,
but they haven't. I'm I'm very glad he said that
and hope that he actually comes through with with a
clean aid bill to Ukraine.
They haven't said it, but they they they're talking about
it now.
What's it look like, Richard?
Look,
I don't much care whether it's a combined bill or
or,
you know, a separate bill so long as the aid
for Ukraine passes.
That's the most pressing of all of that,
right? And every day the battlefield news,
Joe, is, is awful strategically,
both on human terms, yet the other you have these
soldiers on the front lines,
you simply maybe have a half dozen shells and they
have to parcel them out to get through a day.
You can't fight a weather way and it's tilting in
Russia's favor.
This is recklessness and irresponsibility on steroids that we've ever
reached this,
this at this point I'm hoping.
And again, to me, it doesn't matter so much whether
it's loans or grants.
Just get Ukraine the military aid
more and sooner. Yeah, there's obviously going to be a
compromise here.
There'll be less than Ukraine wants and needs.
Arguably, it's obviously been later.
Some of the economic terms won't be as generous.
But if that's the price of getting it,
let's pay the price. Let's bring in Admiral James Trevitas.
He's a former supreme allied commander of NATO,
retired four-star Navy Admiral and the international analyst for NBC
News.
Admiral, your thoughts on this aid?
I'm with Richard. Get it done.
And frankly, it doesn't matter whether it's linked together,
although I can make a pretty good argument that they
all kind of fit together.
But at this point, without question the the racehorse that
needs to be in the pole position is Ukraine.
Look, the Israelis are not going to be defeated by
Hamas.
Certainly China is a longer term problem.
The one that really matters now,
now, now is getting the aid to Ukraine.
It's a military imperative. The only bright spots in Ukraine
are the hits against the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
At sea have been quite effective.
Other than that, the Ukrainians are on their back foot,
both in the air and on the land.
Good news, they're going to add F sixteens over the
next couple of months,
but that will not tip this balance without the bread
and butter of hardcore ammunition for the battlefield,
particularly artillery shells. Got to get done and and final
thought
to draw a line under something the speaker said which
is the world is watching.
It is watching. It is watching and it's it's this
is good news Jonathan obviously if the aid gets to
our allies.
But it's a little rich for a lot of Democrats
who've been making this exact argument for months and months
and months now which is Beijing is watching what we
do in Ukraine. Mike Johnson who stood in the way
of a lot of this aid is now making those
same arguments saying also the munitions are being made in
America. We've been saying on that show Admiral Stavridis has
been saying on this show for months and months and
months.
So Speaker Johnson coming around late to all the cases
that people have been making
for foreign aid to Ukraine,
Israel and Taiwan. Yeah, he's come around late.
Also, this is far from a sure thing to get
to get done here.
First of all, that the 4th bill we don't know
much about yet,
still being worked out. It's going to include a package
of
related measures of precious ban on TikTok seizing assets from
Russian oligarchs in the US and so on.
But the White House deeply opposes this idea.
The whole point was to combine this thinking.
They would have a better chance to get Ukraine funding
through if it was attached to Israel.
Certainly right now Israel has a lot of momentum in
the wake of this weekend's attacks,
but a lot of those on the right are still
opposing the Ukraine aid,
and it's not clear that Johnson has the votes.
A number of Republicans are still opposed to this.
And in order to placate some of the hard right
Republicans,
even if he's able to get their support in the
House,
it's probably going to mean including provisions that are non
starters in the Senate so that they're going to have
to go back there
and that seems
pretty dire that that could get done.
And lastly the fact that Johnson's even taking this step
is endangering A speakership so I guess credit to him
for doing that that Marjorie Taylor Greene raged afterwards about
this declaring it a betrayal but but but
but again you you said hard to right.
You can't even say that anymore,
Willie. When when members of the the Republican House GOP
are saying they're Putin propagandists,
leaders of the Republican Party's foreign policy apparatus inside the
House are saying they have become dupes to Russian disinformation,
or I don't know, are they dupes
or what?
Why would somebody from northern Georgia
start spouting Russian propaganda points?
She's not a dupe, is she?
Why would? I'm just curious,
why would other members of the House Republican Party
start spouting Russian propaganda? I don't have any answers to
this,
though I am fascinated by it.
I know there's been some talk in Russia that actually,
I mean some talk in Europe
that some European politicians have actually
been on the take from Russia.
That explains that. I don't understand,
though, why politicians from Dalton,
GA are spewing talking points from Vladimir Putin and RT.
Russian television. Very strange times when I'm not saying this.
I'm quoting the Republican who runs the Intel committee.
Who's saying this? I'm quoting the Republican who runs the
Foreign Affairs Committee for saying this.
Very strange times indeed in the Republican House,
Mike Turner, the chair of the Intel Committee,
a Republican, said publicly in an interview on CNN last
week.
He hears direct Russian propaganda from the mouths of the
Republicans on the floor of the House.
That's from him. He's a Republican talking about his colleagues
there.
And it is. It is a fair question.
What? Why? Why what? What is,
what's going on? And by the way,
you could take that argument as we have for,
I don't know, almost a decade now,
all the way to the top.
Why does Donald Trump defend Vladimir Putin at every turn?
We've never fully gotten to the bottom of that.
But it does seem many of his minions in the
house are following his lead on that.
Yeah. Richard, why? Look, we have been debating that for
what,
10 years now? No, but I I know,
I know. But. But. But now you have the,
the four, the Ronald Reagan's former party.
Yeah, being run by by by a speaker who has
been worried about Russian propagandists.
Again, Russian propagandists, according to the head of the House
GOP in.
Let's talk about a couple of reasons.
One is the isolationism in the Republican Party,
as you know now is powerful.
The virus has come out and it's got a lot
of political appeal.
There's a lot of, a lot of the support for
Republicans,
particularly out there's white Christians,
a lot of support there for Russia.
You see the websites there,
a lot of overlap. A lot of support,
almost visceral support for for Putin and Putinism and inability
to support anything that has that Joe Biden wants.
If Joe Biden wants it,
Republicans have to oppose it.
Now I can come up with lots of reasons.
Bottom line is, Joe, it risks American National security.
These people, they use the word patriot
24/7. This is about as unpatriotic as you get now,
unless you're talking about Russian patriotism.
Yeah, literally spewing Russian propaganda Talking points.
According to the GOP Intel chief and
the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House
Republican Party,
it is a strange #1 issue.
Why is this her number one issue?
Why? I don't have that in.
I don't understand why. Find out.
Perhaps we'll find out. It's bizarre.