The Memo: Trump and his primary rivals get set for fight over Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is set to become one of the starkest dividing lines in the GOP presidential primary.

Republicans who are largely united on a host of other issues — crime, immigration, the economy and the battle against “wokeness” — have deep tensions over a conflict that has now raged for more than 15 months and consumed many billions of dollars in U.S. aid.

Former President Trump is the front-line contender most skeptical about continuing the vigorous support for Ukraine at its current pitch. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is not far behind — though he has displayed some shaky footing on the topic.

Striking a much sharper contrast, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley insists it is vital for the U.S. that Ukraine should prevail. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is expected to enter the race in the coming weeks, basically shares that view.

The division sets up a fascinating clash as the candidates seek to appeal to a Republican electorate that is itself disunited.

The traditional GOP position that the U.S. needs to assert itself overseas for its own protection still has many adherents. But lots of voters have grown skeptical of foreign entanglements in the roughly two decades since the U.S. launched its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Voter concerns over government spending — and the sense that taxpayer dollars would be better spent at home — also feed into the debate.

The U.S. has provided almost $40 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. It has given tens of billions more in financial and humanitarian assistance.

During his CNN town hall event earlier this month, Trump was asked by moderator Kaitlan Collins whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. 

“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people,” Trump responded.

Trump also insisted that, were he to be reelected, he would have the war “settled in one day.”

The former president was vague as to how this cessation of hostilities might be accomplished. But in a March radio interview with Sean Hannity, Trump appeared to envision a deal where Russian would take over some amount of Ukrainian territory.

“I could’ve made a deal to take over something. There are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly,” he told Hannity.

Haley espouses a far different view.

“The issue with Russia and Ukraine is so much bigger than Ukraine,” she said at a recent campaign event in Ankeny, Iowa. “It’s not a fight for Ukraine. It’s a fight for freedom. And it’s one that we have to win.”

While Haley made clear she did not support putting U.S. troops on the ground, she underlined what she sees as the high stakes in the conflict.

“A win for Russia is a win for China,” she contended.

DeSantis, who launched his campaign last Wednesday, plainly is closer to Trump’s view.

But the situation in his case is muddled; he was widely perceived to have erred in March, when he described the war as a mere “territorial dispute” in which no U.S. “vital national interests” were at stake.

Amid a backlash, DeSantis complained that his earlier statement had been “mischaracterized.” That comment came in an interview with Piers Morgan during which DeSantis also tagged Putin as a “war criminal” who had to be “held accountable.”

Electorally, it’s not obvious which is the winning position in the Republican primary.

GOP voters are markedly more skeptical of aid to Ukraine than Democrats. 

In an Economist/YouGov poll last week, 47 percent of Democrats wanted the U.S. to increase its military aid to Ukraine, whereas only 25 percent of Republicans agreed. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans wanted to decrease aid, in contrast to only 14 percent of Democrats.

Still, the Economist poll also included an option to maintain aid at its current levels — a position supported by 22 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of Democrats.

One key question is whether the erosion of GOP voters’ support for Ukraine picks up pace.

A Pew Research Center poll in January found 40 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believed the U.S. was providing “too much” support for Ukraine. Ten months previously, shortly after the Russia invasion, only 9 percent held that view.

Fred Fleitz, who was chief of staff of the National Security Council during the Trump presidency, told this column that, while the American people were sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight, “Ukraine is not a strategic U.S. interest, and therefore America’s support to Ukraine has to be limited and can’t be open-ended.” 

Fleitz, who is now the vice chair for national security at the America First Policy Institute, added: “We have to make some difficult decisions and find a way to do the right thing for our country first. … My immediate concern is that we are not getting to a solution. We are supporting what will become a long-term war of attrition that is going to end badly for the Ukrainians.”

But Kurt Volker, who was the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations from 2017-19, took a very different view.

He contended that “traditional foreign policy, national-security Republicans” such as Haley, Pence and Capitol Hill leaders including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), held the correct view both substantively and politically.

“Trump will perhaps describe them as chumps who just want the U.S. to do everything,” Volker said. “But the reality is that most Republicans want to see a strong United States, want to see us have good relationships with our allies and want us to be shaping, as [Condoleezza Rice] used to say, ‘a better and safer world.’”

Any political calculations are further jumbled because no one knows where the war — or American public opinion about it — will stand early next year, when the first GOP primary voters cast their ballots.

But Ukraine is one topic where those voters will at least have a clear choice before them.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.