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A Ukrainian soldier carries artillery shells to fire in the direction of Bakhmut as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in Donetsk Oblast.
Can Ukraine get needed weapons without McCarthy?
Kevin McCarthy being ousted as House speaker means Ukrainian troops may not get the gear they need when they need it.
For now, Patrick McHenry (R-NC) holds the post of Speaker Pro Tempore and is tasked with organizing the vote for a new House speaker — but given the slim paths to a win for other candidates, he may be in charge a while.
No matter who is holding the gavel ahead of the Nov. 17 funding deadline, they’ll need their head on a swivel, says Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group’s managing director for the US.
“Whoever the new speaker is will have to keep their eyes on the group of members that tossed out McCarthy, leaving them very little room to maneuver on spending issues,” he says.
The White House’s $24 billion request “could move on a bill to keep the government funded past Nov. 17, but it's not at all clear that House Republicans could pass such a bill, despite overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers," Lieber adds.
Trying to move the funding through a one-off supplementary funding package could jeopardize the speaker’s position despite widespread bipartisan support, further lowering its odds.
The expected paralysis is confounding for European allies. Jan Techau, Eurasia Group’s director for Germany and former speechwriter for German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, says his former colleagues in Berlin are not sugarcoating the situation.
“There is grave concern that this latest development in the US would have, first of all, a dramatic impact on Ukraine itself, but by default then also put allies under pressure,” he says.
Germany, like many countries supporting Ukraine, is drawing on pre-existing stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, everything from artillery shells to main battle tanks, without replacing them quickly. Trying to make up for unexpected bottlenecks in US support – a virtually impossible task given the relatively meager size of European arsenals compared to America’s – by drawing those stocks down further imperils Germany’s own security, but Ukraine doesn’t have time to wait for new units to come off the assembly line.
Techau says it’s not realistic that European allies could find ways to replace US funding drawdowns. Besides, even if they found a way around any NATO member objections to directly funding US weapons aid to Ukraine or tried to purchase weapons on the open market, “it wouldn’t do the trick,” he says. He estimates that production limitations on weapons are roughly 75% of the problem.
“What you need is weapons on the shelf that you can take right away and give to somebody. Only the US has that,” he adds.
Ukraine's aid struggles will worsen if McCarthy is ousted
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week and a challenging week indeed for President Zelensky as we start to see more pushback on the ability to continue to support the Ukrainians in defending themselves against the ongoing Russian invasion.
A few different stories here. The most meaningful one being the push against Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, particularly around support for Ukraine aid. And if McCarthy goes down, that is a big hit to the ability to get additional Ukrainian aid approved over the coming months. Any future speaker that sees that the conservatives of the GOP were prepared to take out Kevin McCarthy for willingness to work with the Democrats and get Ukrainian funding done separately would certainly mean that his replacement is going to be very hard pressed to put forward legislation that would continue to fund them. So this has become a big political football in the United States. Republicans, now identified Republicans, a majority say that too much aid is going from the United States. Ukraine should be significantly reduced, if not cut off entirely. Democrats, those numbers are also going up, but they're still in the minority, about 30% and independents more like 40 to 50.
But that's very, very different from where aid to Ukraine was three months ago, six months ago, twelve months ago, not aligned with President Biden, not aligned with what had been a bipartisan consensus. And while there's a lot of economic aid that goes from Ukraine, from Europe to Ukraine, the military support comes overwhelmingly from the United States. So this is a very serious problem, makes it very hard to imagine that Ukraine would be able to engage in a second offensive next year. And, of course, that means that the land that they presently occupy is the land that they look to be occupying for at least the near term, foreseeable future. That's one point.
Secondly, Canada, which has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine with a large Ukrainian population, ethnic Ukrainian population, that's politically very salient in Canada. They had their speaker of the Canadian parliament forced to resign after introducing and celebrating a man as a war hero that had fought with a Nazi unit in World War II. It is very clear that the speaker had no idea that that was his background. And he comes from northern Ontario. He knows nothing about foreign policy. But hugely embarrassing for the Trudeau government and for a government that has been, again, very, very outspoken in what they're willing to provide for the Ukrainians. And if you oppose that, you now have a lot of grist for your mill.
And then finally, Robert Fico, the former PM of Slovakia had been forced out for corruption, just had an election. Parliamentary election. His party came in front. They will form a coalition in the coming weeks and he ran on a left wing Slovak populist platform, but also on a strongly pro-Russian platform and has said that there will be no more military aid coming from Slovakia to Ukraine. That doesn't actually matter. They don't provide very much that they did. That matter was just at the beginning. And also, it's not going to prevent the EU from ongoing economic support. The Slovaks will be bought off, especially in coalition. But these are significant pieces in showing a level of fatigue for supporting the ongoing Ukraine war. It is a meaningful effort. It is tens and tens of billions of dollars in euros and no end to the war in sight. So increasingly you're seeing voices saying, well, how might one go about negotiation?
And of course, most publicly, the wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, who just over the last couple of days was posting pro-Kremlin propaganda, going after Zelensky. An enormous turnaround for a man who had done among the most of anyone to support the Ukrainians in providing his own Starlink system, ostensibly just for humanitarian purposes. But he knew very well it was being used and supported it being used to help defend the Ukrainians from invasion made a big difference. He's not there now. Now he's saying this war needs to end, the aid needs to end and has been supporting and promoting a lot of pro-Russian and anti Ukrainian accounts.
So you put all of that together.I do think that this is a much more challenging set of headwinds for Zelensky and for the Ukrainian people trying to defend themselves. Now, what does that all mean? Well, it's not going to affect the EU accession process, which continues to move and will provide a lot of economic support and promote a lot of economic reform in Ukraine, which is necessary. And the Russians are not going to be able to suddenly turn on their own offensive because they don't have the troops available. They haven't yet put forward a new mobilization and Putin is unlikely to do that until after his own internal parliamentary elections in the coming year. And once you do that, you still need to train them.
So I would say we're probably a minimum of a year before the Russians would be able to make significant additional gains against Ukraine in the worst case scenario for the Ukrainians. Also, the Ukrainians have had some successes, not in terms of taking territory, but in their ability to target the Black Sea fleet and their ability to engage in successful drone strikes against Crimea occupied by Russia as well as against Russian territory, the Russian homeland itself. They've also been able to get their own ships out into the Black Sea, which means more food and fertilizer coming from Ukraine, even though that deal that had been brokered by the UN and Turkey has fallen apart. So, I mean, these are not end times for the Ukrainians by any means, but it is very hard to see anything that looks like what the Ukrainians would describe as a victory, meaning at the minimum, pushing the Russians out of all the territory that they have taken of Ukraine since February 24th. And I'm not even thinking about things like war reparations and the rest.
And in that regard, you know, the need for the Americans and NATO to sit down with the Ukrainian government and try to figure out how one might, over time get to a cease fire, what can be provided to the Ukrainians that would allow them to and accept a reality where all of their land is not coming back to them? Politically, that's almost inconceivable right now. I can't see any Ukrainian leader that would be able to sell that to his own population. Maybe the exception is if there was full NATO accession as a member that ensured that the West would actually defend non-occupied Ukraine from further assault. But the Americans are not there right now and that gets harder to promote the closer we get to the upcoming elections. There's also risks and that of course, because it means yes, indeed, the West would actually be defending Ukraine from further Russian strikes. So this is looking increasingly difficult in terms of endgame and more problematic for the Biden administration and the coherence of NATO.
That is the analysis as I see it. And we'll keep following this very closely of course. I hope everyone’s doing well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Ukrainian and EU flags fly in central Kyiv as the city hosts an EU-Ukraine foreign ministers meeting, amid Russia's ongoing attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine October 2, 2023.
The fight over support for Ukraine
Aware of that, EU foreign ministers visited Ukraine’s capital on Monday – their first-ever meeting outside EU territory – to signal their continuing commitment to the country’s future. Later this year, the EU is expected to formalize the beginning of a long process to welcome Ukraine, and perhaps several other states, into the union.
In Washington, the news for Ukraine was not as rosy. As part of a deal to stop Republican hardliners in the House of Representatives from shutting down the US government, Democrats met their demand to drop the latest funding package for Ukraine from current spending plans.
This isn’t the end of US financial support for Kyiv, despite intensifying opposition from some Republicans, as well as from likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. President Biden will reportedly call allies to reassure them that US support will continue to flow. There will be more dollars and more US weapons headed for Ukraine in the coming months. But this deal to avoid a shutdown only funds the US government until Nov. 17, setting up more “shutdown showdowns” to come – and now a precedent has been set that Ukraine aid will be a crucial bargaining chip in future fights.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters in the US Capitol after the House of Representatives passed a stopgap government funding bill to avert an immediate government shutdown.
Will avoiding a shutdown cost McCarthy the speakership?
There was no shortage of drama on Capitol Hill this weekend – including a pulled fire alarm that delayed voting by an hour – as the US government managed to avoid another shutdown. Congress passed a stopgap funding bill on Saturday that will keep the lights on through Nov. 17. The proposal easily cleared the House before garnering Senate approval 88 to 9. It included natural disaster aid but no new support for border restrictions or assistance for Ukraine.
The measure passed a day after Republican Rep. Andy Biggs and 20 others blocked a Republican stopgap bill replete with spending cuts, border controls, and curbs on immigration. Unable to fund the government with just conservative votes, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy changed gears, offering a bill that would satisfy Democrats. The absence of fresh support for Ukraine prompted Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet to briefly delay the vote, but bipartisan senators resolved the impasse by pledging to further fund aid to Ukraine "in the coming weeks." President Joe Biden made it clear that “We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted.”
McCarthy is expected to introduce a separate Ukraine aid bill when the House returns. But having worked with Democrats to get this measure passed could cost him his job. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican hardliner, said on Sunday that he plans to move for McCarthy’s ouster this week.
If Gaetz introduces a measure to remove McCarthy, the House will have 48 hours to vote on it.
But McCarthy remains defiant. “If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it," he said. "There has to be an adult in the room. I am going to govern with what’s best for this country.”
The president-elect of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, left, and SMER-SSD party leader Robert Fico, right.
Election update: China champion takes Maldives, Russia scores in Slovakia
Indeed, Muizzu, mayor of the capital city of Male, campaigned on the slogan “India out.” He previously served as the construction minister in the pro-China government of Abdulla Yameen, who is now jailed on corruption charges. Under Yameen, the Maldives secured several Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, including a $200 million bridge connecting Male to the airport, and joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In an online meeting with Chinese Communist Party officials last year, Muizzu pledged that his party’s return to power would grow the “strong ties between our two countries.”
China wants to leverage the strategic location of the Maldives and safeguard the passage of its energy supplies through the area from the Gulf states. But India’s influence may not be that easy to uproot, and there are concerns that too close an alliance with China could tip the Maldives into the “Chinese debt trap,” a fate that has befallen other small nations.
Meanwhile, in Slovakia, the Kremlin-friendly SMER party, led by Robert Fico, performed better than expected, garnering 22.9% of the popular vote and topping the pro-Ukrainian Progressive Slovakia party’s 17.9%. Fico is a former two-term prime minister who was forced to resign in 2018 after the murder of a journalist who had been exposing corruption allegations against the government. Now, Fico is expected to assemble a coalition with the moderate-left Hlas party, an offshoot of SMER, and the nationalist, pro-Russian Slovak National Party.
SMER’s victory spells trouble for NATO: Fico promises to immediately cease providing military support to Ukraine and withdraw Slovakia’s previous support for Ukraine’s NATO membership. His win could also prove problematic for the EU as Fico is an ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán, who gleefully posted on X, “Guess who’s back! Always good to work together with a patriot.” If Poland’s governing Law & Justice party wins a third term in the country’s Oct. 15 election, this trend of illiberal, Brussels skepticism will be further strengthened.Is the clock ticking on Biden and Trudeau?
It’s worse in the US, where every elected official seems to be raising money and running for reelection all the time, but leaders north of the border feel the pressure, too.
With President Joe Biden set for a reelection bid in November 2024 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau due to meet voters by October 2025 at the latest, the already frenetic pace of electoral politics is picking up in both countries.
A pendulum swing may be in the works
Right-wing candidates in both countries aim to unseat the progressive incumbents, which means Biden and Trudeau face stiff competition. Biden’s chances, at the moment, seem far better than Trudeau’s despite some recent polling that may be giving the Democrats cause for pause – or maybe not.
Earlier this week, an ABC/Washington Post poll showed Biden’s approval rating at just 37%. What’s more, it found Donald Trump, the probable Republican nominee, leading Biden 51 to 42.
The poll, however, was such an outlier that even the pollsters who ran it recognized it as such. Criticism followed, and it’s safe to say that it is almost surely not an accurate representation of the electorate. Most polls show a much closer race, with Trump and Biden tied or within a few points of each other.
The picture in Canada is clearer. Trudeau is gunning for his fourth election win in a row – something that hasn’t been done by a prime minister in Canada in over a century – but opposition leader and head of the Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre leads by a lot. Poilievre stood out in a recent poll that found 40% of Canadians think he’d be the best prime minister compared to 31% who chose Trudeau. Canada is a multiparty democracy, so hitting 40% with several leaders on option is a strong showing.
Federal polls in Canada have the Conservatives up by four points on average, with some individual polls showing them up by double digits. According to 338 Canada, which tracks polls and models electoral projections, Poilievre’s side currently would stand to win 174 seats compared to 105 seats for the Liberals, which is enough for a majority government. The Conservatives are currently showing a 96% chance of winning the most seats.
Economic, aging, and legal matters
In the US, voters are expressing concern about both Biden and Trump – they aren’t exactly thrilled with their presidential options. A recent NBC poll echoes the ABC/Washington Post poll’s assessment of Biden’s flagging approval rating. It also shows that fewer than 40% feel Biden is handling the economy well despite job growth and the country heading for a soft landing. People are still feeling significant economic pressure.
Nonetheless, Biden might be safer on the economy than a quick glance suggests, especially since economic hopes are on the upswing. Clayton Allen, US director for Eurasia Group, says “The economy is doing just well enough for Biden.” He points out there’s just enough optimism out there with people’s personal economic outlooks that there’s “some positive sentiment among voters around the economy.” If things keep improving, such as the declining probability of a recession and the Fed’s ability to hold interest rates steady, that will boost Biden’s chances in 2024.
But any recent good news for Biden on the economy has to be tempered by the risk that economic sentiments take a turn. Recent numbers show optimism softening.
Beyond pocketbook issues, however, the electorate is also concerned by the candidates’ ages. According to NBC’s poll, a combined 74% have major or moderate concerns about the president’s “necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.”
Biden is 80 years old. Trump is 77.
Trump is also facing multiple indictments and was just found to have committed fraud in New York state. The NBC poll found that 62% of respondents had major or moderate concerns about Trump’s many legal woes.
Media coverage of the two is shaping a 2024 election narrative that is priming voters to evaluate each candidate on particular metrics. “The narrative around Biden has been for quite a while that his age is the most important factor for assessing his fitness for office,” Allen says. The one about Trump “has focused on his legal challenges and his position in the party.” The looming showdown for 2024 seems to be Biden’s age and fitness versus Trump’s (un)lawfulness.
In response, the White House has crafted a plan – parts of which pre-existed recent polling – to keep Biden fit and, just as importantly, looking fit. Of note, Democrats have had a recent run of favorable election results, which could serve as a proxy for the upcoming presidential race, suggesting an edge for Biden over Trump.
Canada focuses on affordability
Canadians are expressing their own fatigue with the current leadership and economic frustrations, particularly on housing and affordability. In recent weeks, the Trudeau government has gone all-in on the housing file, removing the sales tax from the construction of purpose-built rental units. They’ve also made a push to “stabilize” the cost of groceries – which grew 8.5% year over year in July. Food prices have been a significant issue in the country.
The government seemed to be gaining some traction on affordability issues of late – concerns that will determine the outcome of the next election. But events conspired last week to shift the national focus and some of the government’s attention.
Trudeau’s allegation last week that India assassinated a Canadian on Canadian soil shocked the country and the world. Days later, during a visit to address parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, welcomed a World War II veteran in the gallery who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” He noted the man was a “Canadian hero” and a “Ukrainian hero” before the chamber, including Trudeau and Zelensky, and the chamber gave him a standing ovation. But it turns out that the veteran in question was in a Nazi SS division.
Rota has since resigned, and while Trudeau had nothing to do with the scandal, Conservatives are blaming him for the debacle – and there’s a good chance some voters will, too. This was the last thing Trudeau needed, particularly since questions about whether he can even last until 2025 are already circling. An August poll found a majority of Canadians thought he should go ahead of the next election.
With more than a year to go before the presidential election and as many as two years before a Canadian contest, no outcome is guaranteed. Elections matter, and the time ahead of them leaves plenty of opportunities for events and shifting fortunes to do their thing. Plus, not everyone has made up their mind.
“Polling this far out from the general election is inherently compromised,” notes Allen. “People are still very much deciding what their position is going to be, especially voters who are persuadable to either side.” This is true on both sides of the border, but current numbers suggest that by 2025, we’re more likely to see Biden in the White House than Trudeau in the prime minister’s chair.
The pendulum may end up swinging, but Biden stands a better chance of holding on for another term.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott speak during the FOX Business Republican presidential primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
Sound and fury, signifying nothing — the second GOP debate without Trump
“Every time I hear you, I think I get a little bit dumber.”
That was former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s big hit on Vivek Ramaswamy at last night’s GOP debate in the midst of just one of many chaotic verbal scrums. She was attacking Ramaswamy’s Ukraine-skeptic position, a subject that divided the stage sharply. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used his promise to tighten up the purse strings around Ukraine aid to pivot to a subject the candidates were much keener on: border security.
DeSantis said America was being invaded by migrants and promised he would militarize the border and defend national sovereignty. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said he’d already put his money where his mouth was and deployed his state’s national guard to the border. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said he would address the flow of fentanyl into the US by freezing the financial assets of drug cartels. Haley went a step further and said she would straight up conduct military special operations targeting cartels in Mexico. But Ramaswamy took by far the most radical position, saying he would end birthright citizenship in the United States, which is enshrined in the 14th amendment of the Constitution.
In fact, the border and accompanying issues of drugs and migration seemed to be what the candidates turned to most readily when asked about one of those pesky subjects they’d rather not touch. You know, like healthcare, gun violence, or how any of them think they have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Donald Trump.
Not a single question was asked about the former president being found liable for fraud this week, or about any of his many legal imbroglios for that matter. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took the strongest shots at Trump, looking into the camera to address him directly at one point and later mocking him for “ducking” the debate. (I won’t subject you to his Donald Duck quip).
Trump, for his part, spent the evening addressing autoworkers at a factory in Michigan, after President Joe Biden joined a United Auto Workers picket line there on Tuesday. Trump swore not to allow “the American auto industry to die” and promised if the workers could “get your union leaders to endorse me, I’ll take care of the rest.”
There was just one problem: The workers he was speaking to don’t have union leaders, because they don’t work in a union shop. At the height of the largest auto industry labor action in recent memory, Trump was talking to at-will workers. It’s the kind of Veep-esque gaffe that might negatively impact any other candidate’s primary campaign, but with Trump polling a cool 40 percentage points ahead of his closest rival … he has little reason to worry.
The state of multilateralism: Shaky, fragile & stretched to capacity
Dr. Comfort Ero of the International Crisis Group has spent her career tackling the most difficult conflicts in the world, often exacerbated by severe environmental or social disasters. But as the climate crisis and war in Ukraine compound the forces pushing many fragile societies to the brink, she says multilateral institutions like the United Nations are not prepared to meet the challenge.
Faced with state collapse, food insecurity, and lack of governance, countries like Libya, Lebanon and Sri Lanka are not able to access the help they need to stabilize, build resilience and thrive.
“Countries are already facing difficult trend lines with a multilateral system that is shaky, that is fragile, that is already stretched to its capacity, not able to deal.” she said during a Global Stage livestream event at UN headquarters in New York on September 22, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The discussion was moderated by Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic and was held by GZERO Media in collaboration with the United Nations, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, and the Early Warnings for All initiative.
Watch the full Global Stage conversation: Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer?
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