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Opinion: Blocking Ukraine aid is no way to put America first

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Opinion: Blocking Ukraine aid is no way to put America first

For Presidents Day, the House is taking two weeks off. But first the Republicans who misrule the place honored their favorite president by blocking desperately needed aid for Ukraine — just as Donald Trump demanded.

That fealty to the former president, and the resulting gift to Ukraine’s Russian invaders, was a terrible look even before Friday’s news that Vladimir Putin’s brave nemesis, Alexei Navalny, had died in an Arctic prison. Navalny joins the long list of Putin foes who’ve died behind bars, fallen from windows or been felled by bullets or poison.

Every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt would be appalled at the Republicans’ acquiescence to Russia’s aggression. Except Trump.

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Jackie Calmes

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Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

And President Biden has to manage the mess that Trump and his “America First” disciples in Congress are making of U.S. reliability within the global alliances created after World War II. He’s the one who has to reassure NATO allies after Trump falsely and repeatedly — to disturbing applause at his political rallies — depicts those allies as deadbeats and invites Russia to attack them.

And Biden is the one who has to burnish the United States’ hard-earned reputation as the leader of the free world, dispatching his vice president and secretary of State to do so over the weekend as they met with fretful European officials at the annual Munich Security Conference.

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“History is watching,” Biden repeated five times last week in a speech urging the House to follow the bipartisan lead of the Senate, which had just voted 70 to 29 for more assistance to Ukraine, along with aid to both Israel and Gaza, as well as Taiwan.

Biden was right to emphasize that phrase: History is watching. Not that it matters to MAGA Republicans.

After all, if Trump and his followers had any sense of history, they wouldn’t have revived the “America First” mantle, associated as it is with the isolationist, pre-World War II America First Committee. That Nazi-friendly organization opposed the United States coming to the aid of Britain and other allies besieged by Germany after 1939.

Nonetheless, seven years ago Trump proudly proclaimed in his inaugural address, “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first.”

That rancid cry remains a prominent theme in Trump’s reelection repertoire, because it resonates not just with his MAGA minions but with other Americans justifiably disillusioned by two decades of costly misadventure and spilled blood in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the economic disruptions of globalization.

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The slogan is now a central pillar of the Republican Party because it is, after all, Trump’s party. And a once-Grand Old Party that long defined itself by its opposition to Russia/the Soviet Union now plays Putin’s patsy.

This swing away from global leadership and multilateralism — to isolationism and unilateralism — is dangerously wrongheaded. If the United States steps back, Russia likely plows forward. So will China and Iran, two powers Republicans are quick to condemn. Can’t Republicans see that their words and actions embolden our adversaries? America first, indeed.

As Biden said last week, the United States “stands at an inflection point in history, where the decisions we make now are going to determine the course of our future for decades to come.” Deciding whether to aid or abandon Ukraine is hardly as dramatic an inflection point as, say, 9/11. Yet the response will be as consequential.

In the nearly 14 madcap months that Republicans have had a House majority, they’ve retreated from several impossible positions to avoid calamity, in those cases a debt crisis and several government shutdowns. (Another shutdown looms three days after the House returns Feb. 28.)

Even so, it’s hard to see them backing down this time.

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To allow a vote on the Senate’s foreign aid bill, Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson of Louisiana would have to be willing to forfeit the job he’s had for under four months. Republican extremists have said they’d move to dump him just as they did his predecessor if the House approves aid to Ukraine. Everyone knows the bill would pass, by a bipartisan margin, if it came to a vote.

Republicans and Democrats have dismissed calls for a rarely used workaround — a majority of House members could sign a petition demanding a vote, thus forcing one. Many Republicans don’t want to defy their House leaders in that way, or their ultimate leader: “Going against Trump right now is a death sentence,” one said. And progressive Democrats won’t sign because they oppose the aid for Israel, given its horrific attacks on Gaza.

In a second ploy to try to salvage Ukraine aid, a small bipartisan group drafted a pared-down compromise. That, too, is likely doomed.

The only answer, it seems, is the least likely one: Shame Johnson into allowing a vote. Even after Navalny’s death, the speaker was silent about aiding Ukraine, saying only that the U.S. and its allies should do more to deny Putin’s access to funds for his war.

Biden has tried shaming: “Are you going to stand with Ukraine, or are you going to stand with Putin? Will we stand with America or — or with Trump?”

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I fear we already have the House Republicans’ answer.

What’s worse, many Republicans would like nothing better than to make a liar of Biden, who swore to Ukraine in his State of the Union address last year: “We will stand with you as long as it takes.

If Republicans do kill Ukraine aid, they’ll be on the wrong side of history. The judgment will not be kind. Their Trumpian America First talk will get the same treatment as the original version: nearly universal damnation.

@jackiekcalmes

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.

Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.

Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.

Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

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KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS

President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”

The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.

MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES

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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.

Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)

He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.

Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.

“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.

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He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.

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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.

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Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.

The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.

“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.

As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.

The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.

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That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.

The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.

Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.

Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.

Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.

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The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.

“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.

Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.

The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.

“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.

“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”

It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.

Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.

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President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.

The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.

To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL

Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.

“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.

Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.

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Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds. 

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.

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I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.

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