The Republican Party has turned into the cult of Donald Trump, and assistance to Ukraine from Washington is now on life support. Dr. Michael Haltzel, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, former advisor to Joe Biden when he was a Senator, and active in policy formulation during NATO expansion and the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s and at the OSCE, shared this information with Apostrophe.
- Dr. Haltzel, you are a person with extensive and diverse political experience. How do you assess the current situation?
- I аm unusually pessimistic. Avdivka has just fallen, Navalny was murdered, yet the U.S. Congress doesn't seem to be able to straighten itself out because of timidity on the part of the Speaker of the House. It's not a pretty picture.
- What is the reason? What is wrong?
- The problem in the House of Representatives is lack of courage on the part of the Republicans.
More than 300 of the 435 Representatives in the House would probably vote for the security package that would give Ukraine $61 billion worth of equipment. Unfortunately, the Speaker of the House, the leader of the House of Representatives who controls its agenda, Representative Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, is refusing to even discuss the legislation, which the U.S. Senate passed by a 70-29 vote.
Why? Because Donald Trump is against it. Why is Donald Trump against it? Because Trump wants to win the election in November, and he doesn't want to let President Biden get any kind of victory at all.
This is the most unpatriotic behavior imaginable. Until Trump appeared several years ago, it would have been impossible to believe that a leading American politician could behave that way, but that's the way it is.
Meanwhile, Johnson, the Speaker of the House, is afraid that if he brings the Senate legislation to a vote no matter what happens he would probably be removed as Speaker by a vote of no-confidence. Basically he is putting what he sees as his own political future ahead of what's good for the U.S., let alone what's good for Ukraine. It's a terrible spectacle. It's embarrassing. I wish I had something better to tell you but I don't.
Apparently there are attempts going on to craft some kind of compromise, maybe reducing the package from 95 billion dollars overall - that's not all for Ukraine, it includes money for Israel and Taiwan, things like that.
There are moves that might strip out the humanitarian parts of the of the legislationand try a smaller number that might work, but I doubt it. It doesn't change the fact that in the United States of America, the oldest democracy in the world with established procedures, one psychologically disturbed person like Donald Trump can exercise a de facto veto. He's not even elected to an office; he's just a private citizen now. The sad fact is that the Republican Party has become a cult - not even a religion, it's a cult - and it's built upon loyalty to Trump. I'm a historian, not a psychologist, and the phenomenon is very difficult to explain. I think if you look at movies from the 1930s, of Germans near deliriously giving the Sieg Heil! salute at the party rallies, then you get some sense of the psychology that is involved.
Meanwhile Ukraine, fighting in the interest of Western democracies, is starved for weapons. It’s disgraceful.
I wish I could tell you something more positive. The only good news I can predict is that Trump will not be elected in November. Trump has serious problems with the law, as he faces 91 felony indictments. And even without that, I believe he would not be elected, and the Republicans will probably lose their majority in the House of Representatives. But the problem is that Ukraine cannot wait until November.
- Do you think Biden will win again?
- I think, yes. He is a very intelligent man. I worked for him for 11 years. His team has implemented economic reforms that have yielded successes that no other country in the G7 or even the G20 can boast of. But it is very difficult to communicate this to people.
Biden believes in Ukraine. He strengthened NATO after Russia launched the full-scale invasion of your country. He has been an excellent President. Not perfect, but reallyvery good. H still has enough time to communicate his accomplishments to the voters and win. But I will repeat once again - Ukraine cannot wait these nine months.
Biden’s foreign policy team is outstanding. My former colleague Tony Blinken has been a brilliant Secretary of State. Many other talented people are also working to help Ukraine.
But we have a roadblock in Congress. We are a democracy, and you can't go against the elected representatives of the people.
- Is there any way around Johnson? Is it real?
- There is a way, which consists of signing a discharge petition. Іt's very difficult to do. You would have to have unanimous support from the Democrats and then get a dozen or so Republicans to side with it. The last time I saw anything written about it, it was being considered, but it's highly unlikely. Part of the problem is -- and this is nearly unbelievable -- you would not get 100% of the Democrats in the House supporting it because of a leftist progressive caucus. This caucus objects to including money for Israel in the legislation. It's much less than for Ukraine, but it's still real money. And these progressive leftists are more or less anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.
To separate the aid packages, to separate the aid for Israel from the aid for Ukraine - would be very difficult politically for the White House, for the Biden administration.
As I said, if Johnson would put the Senate bill to a vote, an absolute majority would vote for it. There would be bipartisan support. So millions of Americans are asking - what kind of democracy is it when one person can block the entire process?
There undoubtedly are discussions being held privately, but the problem is that Ukraine cannot wait. I do not believe that the Russians are capable of any significant breakthrough or can come closer to Kharkiv or Kyiv. But Kyiv needs more "Patriot" missiles, more large-caliber artillery - every element plays a role.
- Joe Biden promised "devastating consequences" for Russia if Navalny died in prison. Do you think there will be any serious steps?
- One way they could be punished immediatelywould be to take the $320 billion in Russian assets that's frozen in Euroclear, a Belgian bank, and immediately give it to Ukraine.
For now they may only be prepared to transfer the accrued interest, about 4 billion dollars, to Ukraine. But in the context of what Ukraine needs this is what is called ‘mieloch’ in Russian (trifle, - Apostrophe).
So far, the oil embargo has not worked well because of the Turks, the Indians, the Chinese, they're all getting heavily discounted oil from Russia. Also not a profile in courage.
- And finally. The West is used to thinking that Navalny is the only one who can save Russia. Can we say that no one and nothing will save Russia?
- As we say, never is a long time. Sooner or later Putin's regime will collapse. Now the Kremlin laughs at Navalny's murder and tries to scare other people with it. In the long run, Putin, who has turned a nascent democracy into a dictatorship, will show weakness. But in the near future, he will continue to intimidate his opponents.
