Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) celebrated the Senate’s passage of a $95 billion defense bill on Tuesday as a sign of America’s “resolve” in the face of Russian aggression.

But it also served as an implicit, if temporary, rebuke of former President Donald Trump, whose opposition to the aid has fueled months of intraparty drama over the future of U.S. foreign policy.

The chamber easily approved the defense bill, crafted to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, plus assist two other U.S. allies, Israel and Taiwan, with a coalition of Democratic and Republican votes. Yet the road to get there laid bare sharp divisions within McConnell’s conference as allies of the former president rushed to kill the legislation.

Some Republicans questioned the wisdom of funding the war in Ukraine with no endgame in sight, and even a handful of defense hawks opposed the money, demanding that Congress address the crisis at the southern border first.

McConnell delivered 22 Republican votes for the foreign aid, but he lost a majority of his conference.

That opposition did not happen in a vacuum. Trump has repeatedly challenged Republican orthodoxy on its commitments abroad, both as president and as he mounts a return to the White House.

He’s shown ambivalence and even hostility toward NATO, just last week suggesting he would “encourage” Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack European partners that were “delinquent” on their pledge to devote 2% of their GDP to defense.

However, Trump’s reluctance to assist Ukraine, in particular, presents the most immediate threat to McConnell, who has staked his political legacy on ushering the foreign aid through Congress.

Even as McConnell helped cobble together a strong, bipartisan vote on the defense bill, Trump was already undermining the package by suggesting all foreign assistance be turned into a loan.

“I did the same thing with NATO,” Trump said at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday. “I got them to pay up. NATO was busted until I came along. I said everybody is going to pay.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Trump’s most powerful ally in Congress, injected further uncertainty over the bill’s fate on Monday by demanding that “real border security” be included in any compromise on Ukraine. 

McConnell has attempted to navigate that resistance. He initially demanded and then blessed a Senate compromise with the White House to address the crisis at the southern border.

But he abandoned the red line once a majority of his conference rejected the agreement as a fig leaf that would not actually solve the problem.

Johnson declaring the compromise “dead on arrival” in the House helped torpedo its chances, but so did Trump, who called on Republicans to reject anything short of a “perfect” deal. Senate leadership decided instead to advance a Ukraine bill without the border provisions.

The episode demonstrated Trump’s continued sway over the party, a fact McConnell readily acknowledges.

But it also raised fresh doubts about McConnell’s own hold on his conference, with some Senate Republicans calling for his ouster over what they view as his capitulation on the border.

McConnell has emerged from the saga bruised but defiant — he has chided those Republicans as ignoring the realities of divided government.

“I’ve had a small group of persistent critics the whole time I’ve been in this job. They had their shot,” McConnell told Politico, alluding to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) leadership challenge in 2022.

He has not ceded the debate over the future of Ukraine to Trump, either.

McConnell has dedicated countless floor speeches to championing foreign engagement as a matter of “cold, hard American interest” and has gone so far as to mock Trump’s worldview as a fad.

“I know it’s become quite fashionable in some circles to disregard the global interests we have as a global power, to bemoan the responsibilities of global leadership, to lament the commitment that has underpinned the longest drought of great power conflict in human history,” McConnell said from the Senate floor on Sunday.

“This is idle work for idle minds,” he added. “And it has no place in the United States Senate.”

That worldview has forced McConnell to make a series of concessions as a matter of pragmatism. 

The defense bill funds an inspector general to oversee the aid to Ukraine and trims billions in direct budget support, both concessions to Trump Republicans. And Republican leadership acknowledges the money, in particular nonlethal assistance, may need to be pared back further to get through the House.

But McConnell’s Sunday speech, delivered hours after Trump’s latest NATO remarks, suggests he does not view the shifting political climate as irreversible.

McConnell has been at odds with Trump ever since the Jan. 6 riots, which he denounced as a moral failing by the former president. He laid further blame at Trump’s feet when Republicans underperformed expectations during the midterm elections.

In recent months, McConnell has adopted a policy of not commenting on Trump as he runs for president. But his pleas to Senate Republicans nonetheless amount to a rebuttal of his “America First” foreign policy doctrine.

“In this chamber, we must face the world as it is,” McConnell said in his floor speech. “We must reject the dimmest and most shortsighted views of our obligations, and grapple instead with actual problems, as they come, in the harsh light of day.”

Trump disputes the need for further Ukraine aid and has bragged that he could bring the war to a close within 24 hours, presumably under a settlement that cedes territory to Russia. But that does not foreclose the possibility that he and his allies will allow the aid to pass, at least in some form.

Johnson has in principle vowed not to abandon the war effort, but his demands to reach a compromise have left little hope.

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The speaker has asked for “transformational” border security in exchange for the aid, but in practice, that would likely mean the White House accepting H.R. 2, the House border security bill President Joe Biden has already threatened to veto.

McConnell urged Johnson to give the foreign aid a vote in the House on Tuesday with the caveat he would not be “so presumptuous as to tell him how to do it.”