The Morning: Republicans who like Putin

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The New York Times <nytdirect@nytimes.com> vie., 1 de mar. de 2024 a la hora 6:45 a. m.
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March 1, 2024

By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick

Good morning. We’re covering the Republican

fascination with Vladimir Putin — as well as the
U.S.-Mexico border, Gaza and the subway.
 Vladimir Putin Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Enemy or ally?
Large parts of the Republican Party now treat Vladimir Putin as if
he were an ideological ally. Putin, by contrast, continues to treat
the U.S. as an enemy.

This combination is clearly unusual and sometimes confusing. It

does not appear to stem from any compromising information that
Putin has about Donald Trump, despite years of such claims from
Democrats. Instead, Trump and many other Republicans seem to
feel ideological sympathies with Putin’s version of right-wing
authoritarian nationalism. They see the world dividing between a
liberal left and an illiberal right, with both themselves and Putin —
along with Viktor Orban of Hungary and some other world leaders
— in the second category.

Whatever the explanation, the situation threatens decades of

bipartisan consensus about U.S. national security.

Already, House Republicans have blocked further aid to Ukraine —

a democracy and U.S. ally that Putin invaded. Without the aid,
military experts say Russia will probably be able to take over more
of Ukraine than it now holds.

If Trump wins a second term, he may go further. He has suggested

that he might abandon the U.S. commitment to NATO, an alliance
that exists to contain Russia and that Putin loathes. He recently
invited Russia to “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO
countries that don’t spend enough on their own defense. (Near the
end of his first term, he tried to pull American troops out of
Germany, but President Biden rescinded the decision.)

Trump has also avoided criticizing Putin for the mysterious death
this month of his most prominent domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny,
and has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong and smart leader. In a
town hall last year, Trump refused to say whether he wanted
Ukraine or Russia to win the war.

There are some caveats worth mentioning. Some skepticism about

how much money the U.S. should send to Ukraine stems from
practical questions about the war’s endgame. It’s also true that
some prominent Republicans, especially in the Senate, are
horrified by their party’s pro-Russian drift and are lobbying the
House to pass Ukraine aid. “If your position is being cheered by
Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position,” Senator Mitt
Romney of Utah said last month.

But the Republican fascination with Putin and Russia is real. The
Putin-friendly faction of the party is ascendant, while some of his
biggest critics, like Mitch McConnell, who announced this week
that he would step down this year as the Republican Senate leader,
will soon retire.
(We recommend this article — in which Carl Hulse, The Times’s
chief Washington correspondent, explains that while McConnell
sees the U.S. as the world’s essential force, a growing number of
Republicans do not.)

In the rest of today’s newsletter, we’ll walk through the evidence of

this shift.

Ukraine aid
The Senate has passed an additional $60 billion in aid to Ukraine,
with both Republican and Democratic support. But the House,
which Republicans control, has so far refused to pass that bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is close to Trump, has not
allowed a vote on the bill even though it would likely pass if he did.

A few Republicans have gone so far as speak about Ukraine and its
president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian
propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused
Ukraine of having “a Nazi army,” echoing language Putin used to
justify the invasion.

Military experts say that if Ukraine does not receive more U.S. aid,
it could begin losing the war in the second half of this year. “Not
since the first chaotic months of the invasion, when Russian troops
poured across the borders from every direction and the country
rose up en masse to resist, has Ukraine faced such a precarious
moment,” wrote our colleagues Andrew Kramer and Marc Santora,
who have been reporting from Ukraine.

(Related: Ukrainians who live to the west of the recently captured

Avdiivka are poised to flee in the face of a Russian onslaught.)

Alexander Smirnov
House Republicans hoping to impeach President Biden have
repeatedly promoted information that appears to have been based
partly on Russian disinformation. One example: The Republicans
cited an F.B.I. document in which an informant accused Biden and
his son, Hunter, of taking $5 million bribes from the owner of
Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
But federal prosecutors have now accused the informant,
Alexander Smirnov, of fabricating the allegation to damage Biden’s
2020 presidential campaign. Smirnov has told the F.B.I. that people
linked to Russian intelligence passed him information about
Hunter Biden.

A federal judge has ordered Smirnov detained and called him a

flight risk.

Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson is not a Republican Party official, but he is an
influential Trump supporter, and Carlson has often echoed Russian
propaganda. At least once, he went so far as to say he hoped Russia
would win its war against Ukraine.

Last month, Carlson aired a two-hour interview with Putin in

which Putin made false claims about Ukraine, Zelensky and
Western leaders with little pushback from Carlson. In a separate
video recorded inside a Russian grocery store, Carlson suggested
life in Russia was better than in the U.S. (Watch Jon Stewart
debunk those claims here.)

Republican voters
The shift in elite Republican opinion toward Russia and away from
Ukraine has influenced public opinion.

Shortly after Russia invaded, about three-quarters of Republicans

favored giving Ukraine military and economic aid, according to the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Now, only about half do.

Republican voters are also less likely to hold favorable views of

Zelensky. In one poll, most Trump-aligned Republicans even partly
blamed him for the war. Republicans also support NATO at lower
rates than Democrats and independents, a shift from the 1980s.

More on the war

“Donald Trump views himself as a Putinesque, dictatorial
figure,” Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House leader, has
said. “We should believe him that he wants to go down this
 road.” Jeffries also told The Times how he hoped Ukraine aid
could pass.

The Biden administration is considering giving Ukraine

weapons from Pentagon stockpiles even though it lacks
money to replace them, a short-term bid to aid Ukraine until
Congress acts.

Putin warned that direct Western intervention in Ukraine

would risk nuclear war, alluding in a speech to the French
president’s recent comments about sending NATO troops
there.

Trump plans to meet next week with Viktor Orban,

Hungary’s right-wing prime minister.

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THE LATEST NEWS

The Border
At the border. Kenny Holston/The New York Times; Doug Mills/The New York
Times

President Biden and Donald Trump each visited the U.S.-

Mexico border in Texas.

Speaking in Brownsville, Biden urged Republicans to “show a

little spine” and pass a bipartisan border security bill,
inviting Trump to join him in supporting it.

“The United States is being overrun,” Trump said in Eagle

Pass, about 300 miles away. He also blamed Biden for the
 death of a Georgia nursing student; the authorities have
charged an undocumented immigrant with her murder.

The two events were about more than immigration policy;

they spoke to the competing visions of power and presidency
at stake in November, Shane Goldmacher writes.

A federal judge blocked a Texas law that would let state and
local police expel migrants, siding with the Biden
administration.

More on Politics

Congress passed a short-term spending bill to avert a partial

government shutdown this weekend. Biden is expected to
quickly sign it.

Katie Britt, Alabama’s first elected female U.S. senator, will

deliver the G.O.P. response to Biden’s State of the Union
address next week.

A former U.S. ambassador who is accused of working for

decades as a secret agent for Cuba said he would plead
guilty.

Israel-Hamas War
 In Gaza City. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Gazan officials said that more than 100 Palestinians were

killed and more than 700 injured near a convey of aid trucks.
Palestinian and Israeli officials gave differing accounts of the
events.

Gazan officials said that Israeli forces opened fire at a crowd

waiting for aid. The Gazan health ministry called it a
“massacre.”

The Israeli military attributed most of the deaths to a

stampede. A spokesman said that soldiers fired warning
shots in the air before firing only “when the mob moved in a
manner which endangered them.”

This map shows where the chaos unfolded.

More International News

 In Moscow. Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mourners gathered in Moscow for the funeral for the

Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Colombia’s main international airport has become a hub for

African migrants hoping to reach the U.S.

Some Iranian voters, disaffected and angry at the

government after violent crackdowns, are vowing to boycott
this week’s elections.

Brian Mulroney, the former prime minister of Canada who

helped negotiate NAFTA, died at 84.

Climate
 In Texas. Desiree Rios for The New York Times

More than one million acres have burned in the Texas

Panhandle — the state’s largest wildfire on record.

Judges in Idaho, Montana and Nevada have recently given

their states more power to protect dwindling groundwater
supplies.

The Biden administration said it would, for now, exempt

existing gas-fired plants from new regulations that would
require plants to capture their carbon dioxide emissions
before 2040.

Business

Nine grandchildren of Walt and Roy Disney publicly

expressed support for Disney’s C.E.O. and its current board,
as an activist investor wages a proxy battle for board seats.

Oprah will step down from the board of Weight Watchers,

months after she revealed she was taking weight-loss
medication. The news of her departure sent the company’s
shares into a tailspin.
Other Big Stories

An administrator at Columbia University’s Irving Medical

Center was accused of plagiarizing large sections of his
doctoral dissertation.

The City of Ferguson, Mo., agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle

a federal lawsuit that accused it of wrongfully jailing people
for traffic tickets and other minor offenses.

Opinions
Black Americans often can trace their ancestry back only a few
generations. Genealogy now has the tools to go back further, Edda
Fields-Black writes.

Here are columns by John McWhorter on why Black English

shouldn’t be only for Black people and Michelle Goldberg on
Gretchen Whitmer’s political success in Michigan.

Discover more of the insight you value in The Morning.

The Times is filled with information and inspiration every day. So

gain unlimited access to everything we offer — and save with this
introductory offer.

MORNING READS
 Tending to an “end destination” sign. Christopher Payne for The New York Times

TLC: Inside the repair shop where New York City subway cars go to
get a makeover.

Preservation: Alcatraz is facing deterioration. A new 3-D map

could help preserve its history.

“Who TF Did I Marry?”: A 50-part TikTok series about a woman’s

short-lived marriage is made for TikTok’s middle-aged users.

Lives Lived: Richard Abath was a night watchman whose decision

to allow two thieves disguised as Boston police officers into the
Gardner Museum in 1990 enabled the greatest art heist in history.
He died at 57.

SPORTS

Women’s basketball: Caitlin Clark announced that she would

enter the W.N.B.A. Draft and forgo the opportunity to return to
Iowa for a fifth year.

N.F.L. Draft: A player who spent much of his childhood homeless

is expected to be drafted this April.
 ADVERTISEMENT

ARTS AND IDEAS

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Zendaya as Chani in “Dune: Part

Two.” Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.

Return to Arrakis: “Dune: Part Two” is in theaters this weekend.

The film is the second part of a trilogy directed by Denis Villeneuve
and based on the epic sci-fi series by Frank Herbert. The first
installment was a hit with critics and at the box office, and
Manohla Dargis, The Times’s chief critic, has high praise for “Part
Two.” She writes:

Set in the aftermath of the first movie, the sequel

resumes the story boldly, delivering visions both
phantasmagoric and familiar. Like Timothée Chalamet’s
dashingly coifed hero — who steers monstrous
sandworms over the desert like a charioteer —
Villeneuve puts on a great show. The art of cinematic
spectacle is alive and rocking in “Dune: Part Two,” and
it’s a blast.

Read Manohla’s review here.

More on culture
Sally Rooney will publish a new novel, titled “Intermezzo,” in
September, The Cut reports.

Late night hosts discuss the Supreme Court’s decision to

consider Trump’s immunity claim.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

 Kate Sears for The New York Times

Make a simple, five-ingredient Turkish yogurt cake.

Stream movies on Mubi, an art-house alternative to Netflix.

Ride out the end of winter with these video games.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was plaudit.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and
Connections.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See
you tomorrow. — David and Ian

Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter misstated the length of the book

detailing conservatives’ plans for Trump’s second term. It is 887
pages, not 880.

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themorning@nytimes.com.

Editor: David Leonhardt

Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner
News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti
Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson
News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick,
Ashley Wu
News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar
Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch

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