How Zelenskyj becomes the political football Oktoberfest of the Trumpists: with this trick you don’t have to go to the toilet after every beer

To talk about a storage space would not do justice to the ancient hall. Nevertheless, Volodymyr Zelensky’s impromptu appearance next Thursday in the old Senate chamber of the US Congress is a difficult solution. Normally, only groups of tourists are allowed through the historic hall in the middle of the congress building. But now it must serve as a hiding place for Zelensky. Last year he was allowed to speak before the entire congress in a large plenary session, broadcast by television stations around the world.

This time, the Ukrainian president is not allowed to speak to representatives and senators in the US parliament during his second visit to Washington since the Russian attack on his country. The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, who has been in power since this year, wanted it that way. For his predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Zelensky’s performance in Congress in 2022 was a matter close to his heart.

Republican Kevin McCarthy is the only leading politician in Congress who has deliberately distanced himself from Zelensky. He doesn’t even post a photo together, unlike his party colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are also showing public closeness to the Ukrainian president. McCarthy’s official reason is that lawmakers don’t have time for Zelensky to appear in Congress.

There is a threat of a momentous retreat

You could dismiss this behavior from Kevin McCarthy as irrelevant symbolism. But the leading Republican is depriving the Ukrainian president of one of his most important tools: he is depriving him of his say at the center of American power. It is becoming abundantly clear that American support can no longer be taken for granted. More than a year before the upcoming US presidential elections, Ukraine is in danger of becoming a pawn in US domestic politics.

For Zelensky, for Joe Biden and all allies, this is a bitter foretaste of what may soon come to Ukraine, Europe and the rest of the world. Fears of a momentous withdrawal by the Americans from the billion-dollar commitment to defend Ukraine against nuclear power Russia are becoming acute. Because many Republicans are asking one question more and more loudly: What’s in it for America?

A toy of the Trumpists

The vast majority of Republicans in the US Senate still want to support the attacked country. There is a strong belief here that Putin’s example should not set a precedent, also because China could otherwise feel emboldened to take a similar approach. But in the second chamber, the House of Representatives, where McCarthy presides, resistance is emerging from a growing group of radical Republicans influenced by former US President Donald Trump, who is running for office again.

The budget law, including the release of aid funds, is currently before the House of Representatives. And with his wafer-thin majority, McCarthy has been completely dependent on this radical wing, the so-called ‘Freedom Caucus’, since his very limited election. And Donald Trump is putting pressure on us. A day before Zelenskyj’s arrival in Washington, he published the following appeal on his social platform “Truth”:

In it, he calls on “Republicans in Congress” to withdraw all resources from “the administration of corrupt Joe Biden, which refuses to close the border and treats half the country as enemies of the state.” And Trump goes even further: according to Trump, blocking the budget is also the last chance to deprive the political persecutions against him and other patriots of funding.

Donald Trump thus links his political and personal fate with that of the entire Ukrainian people. Because there is not only the threat of another so-called ‘government shutdown’, that is, a standstill of the American government, resulting in loss of salaries for its civil servants. A US bankruptcy could also happen in just nine days. This would not only further lower the country’s credit rating. The next billions in financial and military aid for the Ukrainian people’s struggle for survival would also be affected. By doing this, Trump is making the Ukrainians and all supporters in the world, especially Europe, his hostage.

Give everything that is still possible

On this day, US President Joe Biden and his administration are doing everything they can to distract as much as possible from this threatening scenario. Zelensky meets with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon and then Joe Biden in the Oval Office. Photos of the two presidential couples were taken in the White House garden.

Government consultations will take place immediately afterwards. On the US side, they have the maximum number of prominent members, with Joe Biden, his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, his Deputy Secretary Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Austin and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. When reporters asked him about the momentous budget hostage taking by Trump’s Republicans in the US Congress, Biden said: “There is no alternative.” The American president can only hope that reason will ultimately prevail.

However, no one can say with certainty today whether the next budget will pass Congress. It is not clear whether there can be another major aid package for Ukraine. Joe Biden will then announce the next military package of $325 million from the current budget that has already been approved. A visibly tired Ukrainian President Zelensky thanks him and says, “This is exactly what the Ukrainian soldiers need right now.” However, the package still does not include the long-range ATACMS missiles needed for defensive combat.

If Trump and his radical lawmakers remain tough, there can ultimately be only one solution: a majority in the House of Representatives for the budget would have to come in a bipartisan vote composed of Democratic and still willing Republican lawmakers. But that would mean the political end of Kevin McCarthy. He would be Donald Trump’s next victim.