Bulwark Takes - Ukraine Betrayed as Trump Cuts Off Intel (w/ Rep. Jim Himes)

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Sam Stein is joined by Congressman Jim Himes to discuss Ukraine no longer receiving US intelligence in their fight against Russia, Marco Rubio falling in line with Donald Trump’s international views, and how Democrats can push back in the House with the upcoming funding bill.

Hey, guys. I'm Sam Stein. I'm luckily joined by Congressman Jim Himes from my home state of Connecticut. This is great. Love to have another nutmegger up here. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. We got a lot to talk about today. I want to start globally because we're talking, it's Wednesday in the afternoon, and there's just a lot of uncertainty over what's happening with U.S. relations with Ukraine and how we're approaching this war. So the big news break this morning is that the CIA Director John Ratcliffe actually confirmed we are temporarily not sharing intelligence with Ukrainian officials, which is going to make it almost impossible for them to target Russians. What is your understanding of the current situation, how long this pause will be going on for, and just sort of what it means for our on-the-ground operations?

Yeah, yeah. So let's start on the very kind of narrow question of intelligence sharing. I suspect that people don't probably appreciate how severe a blow this will be to the Ukrainians. And the reason for that is that one round of NATO 155 artillery ammunition, lots of countries have them. There's factories that make them easily, a little harder to do tanks and F-16s. But my point is that weapons, the Brits have them, the Italians have them, the French have them. No one, and I mean no one, has the kind of intelligence collection capabilities that we do. And I can't obviously, for obvious reasons, get too specific about precisely what they are, but they're not replicable. They're not replicable and they've been important to a lot of Ukrainian successes. So what's happening here in some ways is worse than the weapons pause, which we learned

about 48 hours ago. Because they have the weapons. They have some stockpile of weapons, but what they need is real-time intelligence. Yeah. And of course, now that we've paused those weapons, they will soon not have those weapons. They are using those weapons at a very rapid rate on the front lines. But again, it's not hard at the end of the day for Germany to put a bunch of artillery rounds into a truck and get them to the front line in a couple of days. You can't replace the kind of intelligence that we're capable of collecting and sharing with the Ukrainians. So, you know, bigger picture to zoom out here, because you ask, is this going to be temporary or whatever? You know, there's two ways the Trump administration might have approached this, right? They might have said, we want peace. And we, okay, we know that they want peace. They keep saying they want peace. They could have said, what we're going to do is we're going to go to the aggressor, because we're the only guy on the block that's as big as Russia. We're a lot bigger than Russia. And just say, if you don't come to the table, you're the aggressor, you invaded,

you've lost whatever the number is, 150,000 people in Ukraine. If you don't come to the table, we are going to triple munitions shipments to Ukraine. And then boom, we have a conversation. Instead, the Trump administration took the victim of this brutal attack and said, we're going to force you to your knees because we don't think you're serious about peace. Now, this is a country that has suffered 70,000 fatalities. And by the way, you suffered 70,000 fatalities, but we're really angry because you're not wearing a suit at the White House and saying thank you to us. I mean, you see how backwards this is. Have you, on the sort of granular matter, have you heard from anyone in the administration about an advance of the pause of weaponry and then intel sharing?

Did you hear any explanation for why and what did they say? And then relatedly, there's also reports out there that the administration has banned the United Kingdom from sharing any U.S. military intelligence with the Ukrainians, which suggests that this is a comprehensive plan and that it's been in the works for some time. I just, I would, I know you are kind of limited in what you can talk about, but I just want to get a sense of what the administration is actually telling people in your position about the planning here. Yeah. So the answer to your question, to that question is nothing. I mean, I read about this in the newspaper, right. As the ranking member of the intelligence committee. And so, you know, I think just as it was being announced, somebody called the committee and said,

Hey, we're thinking we're doing this. But no, we are not being briefed on broader strategic plans or even really informed to the extent that I would like to. Are you in touch with the Ukrainians at all? I met with the chief of the Ukrainian intelligence service a week ago, and I'm just embarrassed because, you know, I told him, look, here in the Congress, most of us are for you and the intelligence sharing. I understand how important it is. I mean, he was there and I told him that. And, you know, now since then, we've had the Oval Office meeting on Friday, which was horrible to watch. And then the cessation of arms and intelligence. Look, it's really clear that Donald Trump is bringing Ukraine to their knees because he thinks that that's the way to bring peace. And, you know,

if you want to bring peace, OK, like I said before, there's two ways you can do that. You can push Russia, you can push Ukraine, you can push the, you know, the rapist or the victim. And of course, Trump chose to push the victim. And, you know, so I have no reason to believe that this stuff is going to start back up. Think about the minerals deal. Apparently, the big deal now is if we sign this minerals deal. I don't think that's all that's going to mean is that we have some kind of weird call on Ukrainian minerals. There's no security guarantee in there. And do I believe that Donald Trump is going to resume weapons shipment after he's got the minerals deal? No, I do not.

I think, you know, sadly, there's nothing but downside for the Ukrainians. Trump has talked about having a one onon-one with Putin to discuss the future of Ukraine. There was rumors about it happening in Saudi Arabia. What are your expectations for such a meeting? I mean, obviously we've seen, I'm not disputing your observation that he seems hell-bent on giving the Russians the circumstances that they want to hammer out a peace deal in their liking. If you were to go forward with it, what would it look like if you had to take a guess? Well, yeah, I mean, gosh, you sort of reach for metaphors, right? I mean, this is like,

you know, talking to the wolf about the future of the sheep. Right, exactly. How much sheep do you want to consume? What could go wrong? And by the way, the sheep don't get Exactly. How much sheep do you want to consume? Let's say what could go wrong. And by the way, the sheep don't get to be in the room, but we're going to have this conversation. You know, my fear is and I have every reason to believe that my fear is probably what happens, which is that the president says, hey, you get to stop where where you are right now. You're not going to take more land now. And no, we're not going to give Ukraine any security guarantees, but we're not going to arm them. And so they're going to be limited in their

ability to fight you. And I'm sure Donald Trump will say, and Mr. Putin, will you please promise not to, you know, do more in the future? And Vladimir Putin will say, oh, yes. Oh, yeah, of course, of course. So you have a government funding fight coming up in, God, nine days deadline for funding the government. Good luck. Are there avenues to effectuate either aid or intel sharing or any sort of pressure points on the administration

to get them to more properly balance the scales here? Or is this government funding fight simply going to be like, look, we have a CR, we got to keep the government open. That's that. Well, theoretically, I mean, theoretically, the answer to your question is yes, right? Sure. Congress could pass a law which says that you will spend $60 billion in aid and you

will resume. But what does that mean in this climate when they're not? Yeah, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And if you remember, Donald Trump's first impeachment was because Congress had passed a law saying we will provide aid to Ukraine. And Donald Trump said, called up Zelensky and said, yeah, maybe I'll do that if you give me some dirt on Joe Biden.

And so, you know, we've sort of seen this movie before. But by the way, it's a purely academic discussion we're having because the last Republican who believed in standing up against Russia left the building last week. Right. And so guys like Mike McCaul and Mike Turner and, you know, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, these guys were hardcore pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia. That sentiment has left the building. These guys are just now fully, fully bowing to the dear leader. Let me let me push back. I mean, I agree with you.

But, you know, Marco Rubio, in theory, was pro-Ukrainian. He's now the secretary of state. It's not nothing. But obviously, he's reverted in his position on this stuff. So there are voices inside the administration. It's just obviously Trump's voice that they're following, right? There were voices, right? You're absolutely right. I mean, Marco Rubio was an anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine hawk until January 20th of this year. I mean, you can go back and play 50 different clips where he's talking about how absolutely essential it is to, you know, to stand up for the Ukrainians.

But that, like I said, that instinct, that person, that Marco Rubio left the building long ago. And even the guys that, look, if you're Marco Rubio, you work for the president, right? Of course. And even the guys that look, if you're Marco Rubio, you work for the president, right? Okay. I don't like it, but I get that. But, you know, if you're a previously Reagan oriented Republican hawk, you don't work for the president. In fact, if you read our constitution, you kind of work a little bit against the president. But again, that instinct left the building. Let's talk about the Zelensky meeting a little bit because there is this kind of countervailing narrative that he should have gone into the Oval Office more obsequious, more praiseworthy, more thankful and grateful for Trump.

That he didn't properly read the room and that, in fact, he was the instigator of this dispute between him and Vance that spilled out into public view. I personally watched the 40 minutes. I didn't read it that way, but I can understand as perverse as it may seem that in this climate, knowing Donald Trump, that you get your way when you are flattering of the guy and you have to be overly flattering of the guy. Not saying that he should have done it, but would have been beneficial for him to do it. Yeah. Look, I mean, it's sort of painful to acknowledge that that's true, right? We used to live in a country where, you know, a struggling democracy with 70,000 dead people and civilians

dying every day, that the first thing in the Oval Office wouldn't have been, why haven't you thanked us enough for our aid? And yeah, you know, if I someday need to go to talk to a godfather in the mafia, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get a little bit of training in how to show respect to the godfather in the mafia, right? And if I screw that up, you know, shame on me. So yeah, you know, in as much as Zelensky needed to have a good meeting, and he probably, you know, did some things which weren't in the service of having a good meeting, I guess.

But what I'm not going to play here is the game that my Republican colleagues are playing of trying to put all the blame for this onto the poor guy who in our grandparents' generation would have been called Winston Churchill, you know, whose land is being attacked and bombed and brutalized and children are dying and hospitals are being destroyed and say, yeah, this is really what a screw up he is. Right. No, I got you. Let's switch theaters quickly before we let you go. Democratic Party is, you know, there's kind of an overstatement about the wilderness you guys are in. You're not in that much wilderness, right? You have three or four of that deficit in the

House, 53, 47 Senate. You didn't lose the popular vote by all that much. You have a number of governorships. So I don't want to overstate the situation that the party's in. I think it's actually overstated often. But I do think there is something to the idea that you guys are still struggling to figure out what the right calibration is with respect to how to push back on Trump. And you're here, you're talking about it on the foreign policy realm. I think that's a little bit easier in a way, but I'm kind of curious if you could talk about how the party is trying to figure out the right tone, tenor and mediums to approach as they go about trying to push back on the worst of Trumpism. Yeah. Yeah. And I think your observation is fair. And depending on what it

is we're talking about, we're not totally without tools, right? So we're about to embark on a four or five, six week period in which they try to get a budget done with the ability to basically lose, let's assume Thomas Massey is never going to support anything they do. They can't lose another person. So in theory, they can say, hey, we got to get something done here. That means we need to bring the Democrats on board the way they did all in the last Congress over and over and over again. So that's a possibility. And needless to say, we'll be ready for that. But to the political point, yeah, look, there are a bunch of different views, which is part of the problem. But I do think that I have a consensus view, which is that we're tempted to talk about everything, right? We're so angry about the president's lies and we're

worried about democracy. And isn't it brutal the way he targets transgender children and blah, blah, blah. I think that the developing consensus, I'm not going to say it's unanimous, is for God's sake, talk about economic issues. This president won because we were talking about women's reproductive rights and saving democracy. And he was saying, look at the fact that you can't buy groceries anymore, or that if you buy groceries, you can't pay the mortgage. And I think, you know, it goes back to James Carville. It's the economy, stupid. Now it's really hard. It's funny because it's really hard for us to remember that, but that's how we're going to win. I mean, Carville, it's interesting you brought up Carville because Carville this week was quoted

as saying, and maybe it was last week, you know, play possum essentially, like don't. And I, and to a degree, I's sort of what you're saying, a slight differentiation I should add, but Carville's whole theory is like Donald Trump's going to destroy himself. He's already causing so much chaos. The voters are turning against him. Let him do it. And then when he's at a weaker state, then dive in. I don't think that's what you're saying. I think you're saying fine-tune the focus onto the economy. But what do you think of the Carvel theory about playing possum? Well, so two things.

Number one, Carvel doesn't have a ton of patience for our activists, right? Carvel's a guy who- To say the least. You know? Yes. And look, I think we've got dual goals. On the one hand, I think Carvel is making an argument about how you win by bringing people over to your side. And, you know, chaining yourself to the front of, you know, USAID, which no American has ever heard of, is probably not good for bringing people over to your side. But it's also wrong to say that you can't not manage the rage of the activist base. You know, they want us to do more. They have unrealistic expectations, by the way, about what we can do in this in this moment. But here's here is what I think is true.

Both of those things are important. But it's one thing to say, oh, my God, the Republicans want to cut eight hundred and eighty billion dollars out of Medicaid. Now, I'm going to bet you that about 60 percent of Americans, when you say that, they say, well, how much is $880 billion in Medicaid? What is Medicaid again? Just wait till they do it. And grandma gets kicked out of her assisted living facility. Look what happened in the market in the last two days. 1,300 point drop, right?

That's real. Now, mind you, not all that many Americans are in the stock market. But wait till they open that 401k statement. They say, holy criminy, why do I have a 5% drop? And somebody says, you know why that is? That's because of tariffs. It's only when you're actually feeling the effects of these things that all of a sudden people have this, you know, upwelling of emotion that we can channel and say, let us tell you why you are, let us tell you why automobiles are now $1,200 more expensive than they were three months ago.

That's because of steel tariffs. That's when we've actually got some fuel in our engines, as it were. Yeah, if the wait time on your call to get Social Security benefits is 40 minutes as opposed to 10, that matters. Okay, Congressman, I appreciate the time. Really thank you for this.