There's a reason Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has explicitly refused to put out a 2022 agenda for Senate Republicans: The caucus is split between McConnell allies and pro-Trump opportunists, and they don't really agree on much of anything.
The escalating tensions in Ukraine brought on by Russian aggression on its border are just the latest example of a major issue that divides the caucus.
McConnell has taken an old-school GOP hawk stance on the matter, generally backing U.S. efforts to bolster Ukraine and its ability to defend itself against a Russian incursion, according to The Hill.
From the Senate floor Wednesday, McConnell said, "The United States and our partners should waste no time in helping Ukraine prepare for war. Weapons, material, advice, logistics, intelligence. We should be building the infrastructure to help Ukrainians sustain their resistance to Russian aggression if and when it comes."
McConnell also supports President Joe Biden's move to redouble America's commitment to its NATO allies. Over the past several weeks, Biden has sent some 5,000 U.S. troops to Europe to reassure NATO allies that the U.S. would stand with them in the face of any Russian advances.
“I welcome the president’s deployment of additional forces to the territory of NATO allies situated on our alliance’s eastern flank. I recommended he take such action months ago,” McConnell said Wednesday, noting that members of the 101st Airborne Division are leaving this week from Fort Campbell (based on the Kentucky-Tennessee border) to join NATO forces in eastern Europe.
But McConnell's posture is distinctly different from his GOP colleagues who are pushing Trump's so-called "America First" policy of isolationism.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the Senate GOP campaign chief, criticized Biden's U.S. troop movement.
“The last thing you ever want to do is have troops at risk,” Scott said. "I think they ought to do the other things first,” he added, mentioning a new round of sanctions and shutting down the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany—an $11 billion project that is built but remains idle.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri described his own foreign policy views as "nationalist" and called sending more American troops to the European region a "strategic mistake."
"We shouldn’t be trying to build a liberal empire abroad, we shouldn’t be trying to be the world’s policemen, we need to act what’s in the best interest of America’s national security, economic security,” Hawley said, arguing that China was “the leading threat” to America.
“There’s a question of repositioning troops that are already there, that’s one thing," he explained. "Sending new troops, expanding the security commitment in the form of expanding NATO, I just think that’s a strategic mistake."
These deep GOP divisions—which also surfaced over the Republican National Committee's embrace of the Jan. 6 attack—are exactly why McConnell has refused to release a 2022 agenda. But these conflicting policy views don't only disrupt the Senate GOP caucus, they will also ripple out into key Senate races in which at least some Trump picks are likely to prevail in their primaries. If McConnell bothered himself to actually articulate a set of GOP values to voters, the pro-Trump mini mes would be asked about that agenda and forced to disavow it on some level—revealing how rudderless the Republican Party actually is.
One way or the other, the Senate GOP caucus that emerges from the midterms will likely include more McConnell thorns like Sens. Ted Cruz and Hawley—unless Trump's picks perform so badly in their general elections that Democrats manage to score pickups in somewhat unlikely races like Ohio and Wisconsin.
However, if Republicans retake control of the Senate with more Trump-aligned senators, who knows what kind of wackadoodle stuff will come out of that caucus? Not even McConnell does.
Remember McConnell being asked last month what Republicans plan to do if they regain control of the upper chamber in November?
"That is a very good question," McConnell responded, "and I'll let you know when we take it back."
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