Republican lawmakers — following former President Trump’s lead — are working with a wide range of conservative groups to pull back American support for Ukraine, the Middle East and Europe, officials tell us.
Driving the news: Eleven Senate GOP “no” votes on a $40 billion Ukraine aid package last week was the clearest sign the new coalition’s influence is expanding.
What they’re saying: “We’re going to come out on the back end of this — probably in a period of months, but certainly by 2024 — with a strong conservative and libertarian consensus about a more restrained, but still very robust, American foreign policy,” said Kevin Roberts, who late last year took over as president of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
- Objections to the Ukraine bill fell into three categories: strategic differences over America’s policy role in world affairs, procedural objections to the bill’s speedy passage through Congress and concerns the money could be better put to use domestically.
- “Every Congressman had their own public reason for voting no, but I don’t think you would have seen this expanded coalition if it wasn’t for a genuine reassessment of American foreign policy happening in the Republican conference,” one operative involved in the effort told Axios.
Media: Tucker Carlson is considered the voice of the so-called realist right, and his top-rated Fox News primetime show routinely questions U.S. aid for Ukraine and foreign military entanglements more generally.
- Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon is also an influential voice in the space.
- The American Conservative’s presence at the Paul meeting underscored its continued influence among those segments of the right. A newer publication, Compact, has also added an influential voice on the populist right.
What to watch: The new coalition’s influence will soon be put to the test when the Senate votes on Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.