President Biden will sign a $95 billion foreign aid package that has critical US allies breathing a sigh of relief. The Senate overwhelmingly passing the measure which provides needed funding to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. We tell our allies, we stand with you. We tell our adversaries, don't mess with us. We tell the world the United States will do everything to safeguard democracy and our way of life. Also included in the bill, the first sale, effectively a ban on TikTok. President Biden has said that he plans to sign the bill today shortly after the vote. Republican leader Mitch McConnell has been one of the strongest advocates in Washington offered this stark assessment of why many in his party had turned on Ukraine. I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who, in my opinion, ended up where he should have been all along, which was interviewing Vladimir Putin, where he should have been all along interviewing Vladimir Putin. Let's bring in our panel, Ron Brownstein, senior editor at The Atlantic, Matt Gorman, former senior adviser to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. And you care who is Pfizer, too, Senator Bernie Sanders. Welcome all. Ron Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson, Mitch McConnell walk into a bar question mark. Yeah. Who's missing in that sentence? Donald Trump. I mean. Sure. Tucker Carlson ended up where he should have been interviewing Vladimir Putin. But Mitch McConnell is kind of punching down and kind of ignoring the elephant, I guess, at the party in the room, which is Donald Trump and Donald Trump's demonization of Ukraine. His resistance to this, although Trump in the end, I mean, I think in the end he was hands off, but certainly his opposition. You know, it's interesting. I think was Eric Schmidt, the senator from from Missouri, who pointed out on the first vote when the Senate when a majority Senate Republicans voted against this as a standalone, that virtually everyone elected to the Senate, every Republican elected Senate after 2018 voted against it. Right. Basically the Republicans in the Trump era. Yeah. Are are, you know, dubious of America's traditional role There are still obviously a piece of the Republican Party that is supportive of that. But the direction of the party in the Trump era is towards skepticism about America. As kind of the Reaganite leader of the free world. And that, I think, adds to the pressure of those center right suburban Republican voters who have felt more and more marginalized in the Trump era. Metformin, I mean, to just to pick up on on Ron's point there, I mean, is this an inevitable shift? Because there is this possibility that we just continue going down that when Mitch McConnell on his way out right now that said, Mike Johnson also a Trumpian, you know, a Republican in the Trump mold, started getting intelligence briefings and said, oh, wait, yeah, we need to do this. Look, I think about 50 or so of those. 112 Republicans in the House that voted against this were part of the vote no but hope yes kind of caucus, if you will. I think for a really true test on where this stood, at least in the House. Look to that Marjorie Taylor Greene amendment that would have zeroed out all Ukraine and how about 71 people I think it's a fairly accurate prediction but I think like most things in the Trump era it didn't fundamentally flip everything on its head. It accelerated things that were already coming. We saw sort of this bubble up ten years ago with Syria. No, the Rand Paul wing of the party. That's where this came up. This has been percolating and bubbling ever since the end of Iraq or so. The Bush years is where the rubber hits the road. It's been kind of a theme in American history. Right. I mean, look, famously, the battle between the isolationists of the internationalist wings of the Republican Party was settled in 1952 when Dwight Eisenhower beat isolationist Robert Taft for the nomination. And over the next 60 years, in every Republican presidential administration, the internationalist forces dominated. Even when Trump was elected, there was still that kind of history and muscle memory that influenced his own administration. And there was a lot of resistance to his criticism of Naito and his kind of pulling back on that traditional role. And I think with Mike Johnson, you did see more of that kind of resurface than you might have expected in this fight. But overall, the general trajectory is that that part of the party is receding. The isolationist Trumpian nationalist J.D. Vance part is ascending, and if you are a just under like an in polarized Chicago Council on Global Affairs, just under half of Republicans, Republican voters say they support an aggressive role for America in the world. They are now the minority and they have to face the reality that on most issues, the party is going to continue to evolve a way not toward for them. I thought it was interesting. Jonathan Martin of Politico, a really richly reported piece about how we have. Yes, exactly. And it was about how Mike Johnson lobbied Trump, so to speak, and how the Republicans lobbied Trump to you. Could I agree that you could have killed this bill if you wanted to, to stay on the sidelines? And it was an interesting piece. It was essentially saying, you know, President Trump, if you are elected and you let them sack succeed, you will enter office in chaos in Europe. And it was obviously convincing. Well, and in that in that piece Jonathan Martin at Politico also writes about foreign leaders who were lobbying Donald Trump, the British foreign prime minister, David Cameron, he writes, also made the Palm Beach pilgrimage. You went down to Mar a Lago and underscore that Europe actually was making this financial commitment and they had made a commitment to Ukraine They say it's he writes, it was also no coincidence. Cameron and foreign ministers of Germany and Italy cut a video. Good way to talk to Trump from the G7 foreign ministers conference. Last week where they emphasize this need. And as significant, the Polish president Duda made his own well-timed trek to see Trump, this time at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Used a lengthy Wednesday dinner last night to discuss Europe doing more for Ukraine and Putin's expansionist appetites. So, I mean, this clearly also demonstrates that these leaders are preparing for Donald Trump to potentially be elected again. But this bill also included aid for Israel, which is contentious on the Democratic side. What do you see here? Yeah, that's right. Senator Sanders, for whom I know manage a presidential campaign, voted against this and on specifically because of Israel and the US-Israel relationship, I think is one of the most struggling points right now, because I think most of I think a vast majority of Democrats within the Democratic Party are wanting some accountability for Netanyahu's actions. And that when you have the wanton killing of what, 30,000 plus civilians in Gaza without any sense of is there accountability when you go over the line from an American government now with now that President Biden has gotten the funding, I think a lot of progressives, a lot of people in the Democratic Party are going to say, okay, so we've got the funding now. It doesn't have to flow without condition. What are you going to do to institute some conditions? Use that as leverage. That's this that this is now that point for President Biden to show, hey, yeah, I got money in my pocket to give to you with some strings. Attached and change in the behavior of Israel. You know, there is a day on the calendar circle May 8th, which is the day that the Biden administration has to report to Congress whether Israel is using the arms we are sending in accordance with international law and also whether they are impeding the flow not only of aid directly from the US, but from international organizations that we support. That was part of an earlier deal with Senate Democrats who opposed unconditional aid. The administration is going to certify and that would be another flash point on the kind of conditions they face we're talking about. Very interesting.
