Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went on a rare media blitz this week to celebrate the passage of the defense supplemental security bill, taking a victory lap after months of criticism and questions about his leadership for backing an issue that is actively dividing his party.
The top Senate Republican has participated in seven interviews since late last week about his efforts to pass the bill through the upper chamber. The Senate voted 70-29 on Tuesday to pass the $95 billion supplemental, which includes military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Negotiators backed by McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) worked for over four months on a border security deal that was viewed as essential to pass the overall bill through both chambers. All the while, McConnell took repeated hits from his right flank for his dedication to passing Ukraine aid and his support for the bipartisan deal.
While more than half of the 49 GOP senators support some type of continued aid to Ukraine, there is a vocal part of the conference that strongly opposes the funding. There is also an influence campaign by former President Donald Trump and his allies, who are publicly urging Republicans not to act on anything that could benefit Biden in November.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) won’t commit to bringing the legislation up for consideration, and both would face a reckoning from their right flank if they considered doing so.
That criticism escalated into questions about his control over the Senate GOP conference as Republicans revolted against the border security deal after the legislative text of the highly publicized agreement was released. The dissent put the bill’s fate into question, with it being briefly unclear if the legislation had a path to passing the Senate.
McConnell went on defense as the chaos prompted critics to accuse him of losing his grip on the conference, pushing back in interview after interview on his conservative foes and opposition to Ukraine aid.
“Every argument against this is wrong. Every single one of them,” McConnell told CNN on Wednesday of aiding Ukraine against Russia’s military invasion. “Most of the money’s being spent here. Europeans have done as much, and, after the $55 billion from the EU, more than we have. Not a single American soldier has lost their lives in this fight. We’ve got a bunch of people willing to kill Russians. I can’t find any argument against this that makes any sense.”
He told the Hill on Wednesday that efforts to deter foreign aggression in Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel are the “single biggest issue we’ve had in a long, long time.” He also rejected the notion that he had underdelivered on Republican votes for the final bill, pointing out that he provided 22 of the 49 GOP members.
“We got about five more than we thought we were going to get,” he said of the vote. “Trump was making some calls. It’s funny to be glad you get 22, but I’ve been on the short end of some of these other things, and 22 seemed like a landslide.”
Speaking to USA Today on Wednesday, McConnell acknowledged that he was in the minority within his party, telling the newspaper, “There are issues that come along where the views of the public at a given time may be inconsistent with what the right thing to do for the country is.”
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McConnell said Trump, whom he called the “likely nominee,” made his campaign to pass Ukraine aid “doubly challenging.”
“He’s very influential, there’s no denying that,” he said of Trump. “He’s got the biggest following among Republicans in the country; he’s certainly been in the process of demonstrating that.”