Congress’s Tug-of-War Over Ukraine Aid (w/ Scott Cullinane)

As members of Congress depart Washington for yet another recess, critical aid to Ukraine remains stalled. What explains the eight-month deadlock, and what are its consequences for both U.S. foreign policy and Ukrainian defense capabilities? In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn talks with Scott Cullinane, director of government affairs at the non-profit Razom for Ukraine. Cullinane previously served as founding executive director of the non-profit U.S.-Europe Alliance as well as various positions with the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Music by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, I'm Jacob Heilbrunn, and welcome to a new edition of In the National Interest.

(00:29):
My guest today is Scott Cullinane, who has previously worked at the House Foreign Affairs
Committee under former Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and is now Director of Government Affairs at
Razom, an American organization dedicated to aiding Ukraine.
Scott, I wanted to talk to you today about the impediments that aid to Ukraine is facing,

(00:55):
specifically in Congress.
I just learned today that Congress is going on vacation again.
What accounts for the dilly dallying in passing military and financial aid to Ukraine?
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you for having me on.
It's really a pleasure to talk about this.
We at Razom have been advocating for Ukraine for months, and since the president's national

(01:18):
security supplemental was first proposed last summer, about eight months ago, this has been
our number one priority to work with Congress to get this deal passed.
It's been an incredibly challenging and personally frustrating experience.
This story has had multiple twists and turns as we have tried to find a way forward.

(01:45):
You ask what explains the delay, and frankly, Ukraine has become a very political issue.
I say on Capitol Hill that discussions about Ukraine have become very divorced from events
on the ground and increasingly attached or tied up with the political currents domestically

(02:08):
here in the US around the politics of foreign aid, of America's role in the world, politics
around the presidential primary, and even in some cases, politics around the individual
primaries of members of Congress.
We've sort of gone through this process where Republicans put forward the idea that they

(02:30):
wanted something in exchange for going along with the president on more money for Ukraine.
Listeners who can think back to last fall to October, November, we were discussing this
idea of border policy changes or more money for the border or some variation of that.

(02:51):
We, frankly, wasted a lot of time trying to get serious and negotiate a deal that ultimately
fell apart over the course of about two and a half or three days.
We've had several false starts, and at each point has sent us back to square one, back

(03:16):
to the first step.
And we've kind of had to repeat this process a few times over of trying to find some political
pathway, some political compromise, some packaging of things to make the deal attractive enough
for both House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats.
And we're still in this process of trying to find the right formulation of spending

(03:41):
and policy trade-offs and process mechanisms that lets us get over the finish line.
And as you pointed out, we're on the brink of a two week recess where Congress won't
be here.
So at this point, we're probably looking at mid to late April being the very soonest Congress
will be able to act and pass Ukraine aid.

(04:01):
Do you think the opposition has more to do with the desire to stymie Joe Biden than it
does not to aid Ukraine?
It's certainly part of it.
It's hard to disentangle those two things.
And I still believe that the majority of Congress, and I would argue the majority of both parties

(04:27):
in Congress generally are pro-Ukraine.
They would prefer Putin to lose and they would like Ukraine to do well.
I think broadly, directionally, that's where most members are.
But Congress is in rough shape.
And many people have argued elsewhere about how dysfunctional and perhaps even broken

(04:52):
Congress is.
And so the lack of progress on Ukraine aid is not unique to Ukraine.
And there are aspects of it that are unique to Ukraine, but broadly, this ability of Congress
being unable to compromise, being unable to do big things, that's across all spectrums.

(05:14):
This Congress, we're here in March and we are just this week finishing the appropriations
packages six months into the current fiscal year.
This is a Congress that has struggled just to avoid shutting down the US government.
Just doing that feels like a somewhat major accomplishment.

(05:37):
And then when you ask Congress to do big things on say tax reform or in foreign aid, regulating
big tech, it's just sort of outside what seems to be the current ability of this Congress.
And as we get later into the year, the gravitational pull of the election cycle and the election

(06:02):
calendar, just we get into the silly season of Congress.
And at that point, it's really hard to get anything done.
So there's politics involved, different members have different relationships with the president.
But I tend to see this more as a broader sort of a reflection of broader dysfunction in

(06:26):
Congress that's stopping a whole number of important items from moving forward.
Is it dysfunction or is it a product of the Republican Party specifically on foreign policy
jettisoning the internationalist Republican foreign policy that we did essentially see

(06:47):
from Dwight D. Eisenhower through Ronald Reagan and onwards?
Is that really what's bollocksing up this whole Ukraine aid?
That is a significant part of it.
It's not the only reason, but it's absolutely there.
And the shift in how Republicans think about America's role in the world and foreign policy

(07:10):
has clearly changed.
Even in, I first came to work in Capitol Hill about 15, almost 15 years ago.
And I can see it for myself, the change and the shift in attitudes and views of staff
and members, even if we went back to the Congress that existed in even 2018, we would not be

(07:34):
in the same place as we are right now.
And there is just a change in a minority, but a meaningful, a meaningful portion of
Congress.
I'm not sure it's a majority, but I'll say at least a meaningful portion that just has
a little bit different view of how America should operate in the world.

(07:56):
You know, I certainly, you have to say the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have informed
the way many members think about foreign aid.
And there's just generally, I think in some quarters, a sense that America can pull back
from the world, that America doesn't need to, or maybe shouldn't be in a leading role

(08:18):
and that others can take care of themselves.
It's really a break, certainly a break from the Republican Party.
You know, I grew up in, and I think it's certainly a break from the historical norm, as you pointed
out, that we've known since at least the 1950s.
How much is this delay in aid costing Ukraine militarily?

(08:42):
It's undoubtedly costing Ukraine.
And certainly you can argue in terms of territory, in terms of opportunity, but I would point
out in terms of people, both military personnel, soldiers, as well as civilians, there are
people dying today in Ukraine because there is not sufficient air defense missiles.

(09:02):
There are people dying because Ukraine is at a deficit in terms of artillery and fires
on the front line.
And there is a direct tie to the fact that the U.S. has largely ended our military aid
to Ukraine since December.
It's absolutely undeniable.

(09:25):
And I think the signal that sends both to the Kremlin and to our European allies about
American resolve, about American credibility, about our basic ability to be serious about
our own national security interests and our own defenses is doing harm to American credibility

(09:48):
in the world.
So, yes, it is definitely costing Ukraine on the front lines.
I don't think it's not a deficit.
It's a deficit that can be made up.
These losses can be reversed for the most part.
People cannot, but the territory can be.
But it's costing America.
We're burning through our credibility.

(10:11):
And I'm not sure that Congress or people in Washington fully understand or appreciate
that quite yet.
So, Scott, there is a discharge petition in the House right now that's garnering.
It's got almost 200 signatories.
I'm wondering, as a final question, what do you think the future holds?

(10:34):
Are you optimistic that Ukraine aid will, in fact, be passed in the coming months?
Well, I am optimistic.
And I continue to think that the supplemental in some form will be passed by Congress.
I think that will happen.
It will happen late.
And like everything with this Congress, it will be behind schedule and done in perhaps

(10:54):
the most ugly way possible.
But I think it will get done.
And you're correct that actually at this moment, there are two separate discharge petitions
trying to move some form of the supplemental with aid for Ukraine.
At this moment, the one that you referenced, the Democrat-led petition by Congressman McGovern,

(11:16):
has nearly 200 signatures.
At this point, I think that's certainly putting pressure on the speaker.
It needs to get to 218 in order to force a vote on Ukraine aid.
And at this point, I think that is very doable.

(11:36):
But it does require Democrats and the White House to put some effort into convincing progressives,
at least to go along with discharge because they have some concerns about the portion
of the bill that pertains to military aid to Israel.
And you also need to attract a small number of Republicans, perhaps eight to 10, something

(12:02):
in that range to also join the discharge petition.
And I think that is very doable, but it won't happen on its own.
And it will require Leader Jeffries and the White House to make an effort to make that
happen.
And I think the dynamic has been for the past few weeks, certainly for this week, that Congress

(12:26):
needed to pass the appropriations packages to keep the U.S. government open.
It's very hard to ask members of Congress to fund a large foreign aid bill while our
own government is shutting down or on the verge of a shutdown.
So as we're recording this, Congress is about to pass the final appropriations package that

(12:49):
will keep the U.S. government funded for the remainder of the current fiscal year.
And the hope is, is that now that creates the political space for people to talk and
for people to find a pathway forward.
But the exact formulation and what it looks like is really hard to predict.

(13:13):
At the moment, you see different members putting forward a whole range of ideas.
You may have seen Lindsey Graham was just visiting President Zelensky and Keith and
put forward the idea of making some of the grants into loans.
Or there's a whole variety of different sort of variations on a theme about what Ukraine

(13:35):
aid could look like or what might be some moderate or acceptable border policy provisions
that might allow more Republicans to be supportive.
And at the moment, it's—to me, at least, it's not clear which one of those will emerge
as the procedure or the pathway forward.
But you see lots of members putting forward ideas, trying to see what sticks and trying

(14:00):
to find, you know, what is going to be that combination of things, a combination of policy
or spending that creates, that unlocks the political will and particularly the political
will in Speaker Johnson to bring forward Ukraine aid and put it on the floor for a vote.
Scott, I know you're working energetically on this issue, which in my view is unnecessarily

(14:25):
convoluted.
I wish it had been passed a while ago.
But I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us.
Your remarks are excellent.
And I hope everyone else has enjoyed this new episode of In the National Interest.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, everyone.