What some Republicans are getting wrong about Zelenskyy and Ukraine

One of the oddest controversies in an election season full of them involves Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania during his recent tour of the U.S. During this trip, Zelenskyy also met with President Joe Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump and gave a speech at the United Nations in New York.
The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, “specifically builds 155-millimeter howitzer rounds, some of the most vital equipment for Ukraine’s defense against Russia,” which it also does for the U.S. Department of Defense.
In a sane world, this would be unremarkable. Hosting a foreign dignitary from an allied country at a plant that is manufacturing a product he needs for a war on his country’s existence, in a city not far from Washington, D.C., and New York City, would seem nearly routine — worth a few local stories, maybe a 10-second clip on the evening news, and very little else.
Instead, the visit seems to have sparked a congressional investigation by the House Oversight Committee and a denouncement from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., who demanded that Zelenskyy fire Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S.
Zelenskyy is a popular and well-liked leader in America. One poll last year showed him more popular than Trump or Biden, and although his favorable ratings have slipped in the past year, most Americans have confidence in Zelenskyy’s leadership. Pennsylvania is a key, and probably the key, swing state, with a popular Democratic governor. But that alone means nothing. Every state and district is represented by one party or another, and it can hardly be said that Pennsylvania somehow becomes a no-go zone for foreign leaders because of close polling in the presidential election.
The Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Comer, R-Ky., pointed to comments Zelenskyy made in an interview with The New Yorker, which they claim were critical of Republicans. Other critics, such as Dan McLaughlin at National Review, compare Zelenskyy’s trip to Trump’s infamous phone call with Zelenskyy in 2019, which led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Yet this case doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. It is true that Zelenskyy was critical of comments by Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, who has been openly hostile to Zelenskyy since before he was even elected to the Senate. But Zelenskyy’s comments were mixed, saying that Trump’s message to him was “as positive as it could be,” implying he expected aid to continue.
I find McLaughlin’s take to be odd. He validates almost every aspect of Zelenskyy’s trip, correctly noting that he is “acting well within his rights and his nation’s interests” to try to influence the American public in ways favorable to his country. But he concludes that somehow traveling the short distance to Scranton, and having Democratic politicians that represent the state meet him, is somehow “election interference” — akin to Trump withholding aid to induce Zelenskyy to investigate the son of his rival.
This is in spite of the fact that the Scranton ammunition plant has increased production by up to four times what it was in prior years, clearly due in large part to sales to Ukraine. Indeed, not only does the public have an interest here, but the munitions plant specifically has a clear interest in meeting a major customer. Any real or perceived benefit to the Harris/Walz ticket is a side effect.
McLaughlin’s National Review colleague, Jay Nordlinger, points out that nobody was claiming “election interference” when Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban explicitly supported Donald Trump during a visit to Mar-a-Lago. The Biden/Harris administration may have impure motives, if they suggested Zelenskyy’s visit to Scranton, but most politicians have mixed motivations of policy and politics, most of the time. Claims of “election interference” based on this this is frustrating.
That said, foreign interference in American politics is a real problem. There are Russian-financed influencers that inserted themselves into our politics before the Department of Justice caught wind of it, and Iran’s political influence is far too little discussed — it has only recently has gotten real pushback when three Iranians were changed with hacking Trump’s campaign. This is scratching the surface. Foreign influence in the media, academia and other institutions that impact elections is massive, and our current policies are woefully inadequate to combat this problem. But comparing Zelenskyy’s trip to these kinds of activities does a disservice to this vital issue.
The real issue here is that too much of the Republican leadership has, partly due to Trump’s odd fascination with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, developed odd instincts on Ukraine since a particularly loud minority in their base detests Zelenskyy. Nervous congressmen seem to act in contradictory and self-defeating ways as a result. Doing the opposite would have been better, both for policy and their self-interests. Speaker Johnson did the right thing in passing Ukraine aid, and a majority of congressional Republicans aided him. They paid no political price and got significant public praise for doing so. There is no good reason for Republican congressional leaders to imply to the hundreds of thousands of Polish and Ukrainian Americans in Pennsylvania that they are hostile to Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian cause. But that’s the message they’ll get from the investigation and denunciations of his visit.
Still, there is a huge political and policy opening for Republicans if they take it. Thus far, Biden has failed to give Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles, provided by the U.S. and its allies, to strike inside Russia. Zelenskyy hoped to get that permission during his trip, but it didn’t happen.
Republicans should have, and still could, blast the Biden administration for aiding Ukraine too little, too slowly. There are hundreds of targets, such as fuel and ammo depots and airfields, that could be reached by the weapons, and releasing them could help win the war on terms favorable to the U.S. This is a significant political vulnerability for Biden and Harris, and such a stance is more in line with traditional Republican hawkishness.
Blind partisanship and reflexive responsiveness to the loudest voices is destructive, not only to good policy but even to political self-interest. Just look at Harris. She’s made mistakes on Gaza, but she won when she told the functionally pro-Hamas uncommitted delegates, who demanded a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, to pound sand. It took a few weeks, but her stance led to their capitulation. There’s still time for Republicans to take similar actions and return to their hawkish roots. But time is running out.
Cliff Smith is a lawyer and a former congressional staffer. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he works on national security related issues. His views are his own.