The NPR Politics Podcast - Biden Scores Big Wins In Baltics

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

The administration's policy goals regarding Swedish accession to NATO and more military aid for Ukraine were front and center at this week's summit of the military alliance in Vilnius, Lithuania. But, despite NATO's continued support of Ukraine, there still is no timetable for the country to join the alliance, rankling some.This episode: political correspondent Kelsey Snell, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and international correspondent Eleanor Beardsley.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast, and we've got some special friends in studio because it is Bring Your Kid to Work Day here at NPR. This podcast was recorded at 1.31 p.m. on Thursday, July 13th. Things may have changed by the time you listen, but we'll still be here taking tours and exploring headquarters. All right, here's the show. That's so good, guys. Loved that.

It has been a little chaotic here at the NPR studios, but we've been having a great time. But for now, hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover politics. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And NPR's international correspondent, Eleanor Beardsley, joins us from Paris. Hi, Eleanor. Hello, guys. Or gals, I should say. It's great. It's my pleasure. My pleasure. We're so glad that you're here because you are just back from Vilnius, Lithuania,

where NATO leaders held their annual summit. And Eleanor, before we get down to the details of the summit, can you give us a sense of what the scene was like and how Biden was received here? He looked amazing at the summit. He looked like this, first of all, he's the big man on campus. You know, the U.S. is the most important NATO country. And he comes in and he just, it was an amazing balancing act.

He managed to keep a pipeline of aid and commitment coming to Ukraine without going to war with Russia. And everybody seemed happy at the end. So it was really, I mean, it shows his experience. He just comes in there and does it. So that was kind of impressive, I have to say. A lot of different things were on the agenda and some big wins for the Biden administration in its policy goals. Notably, it looks like Sweden is going to get to join NATO this year.

But there was some controversy about that because Turkey was blocking them from joining the alliance. Eleanor, can you explain the backstory there? Yeah, I mean, Turkey for the last year has been blocking Sweden because it considers that the Swedish government does not take seriously a Kurdish group that it considers a terrorist group, the PKK Kurdistan Workers Party. Well, basically what happened is on the eve of the summit, everyone heard that Turkey is demanding that its bid to join the EU move before it stops blocking Sweden joining NATO. And everyone just thought, oh, this is never going to happen. Two hours later, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg comes out. He says, I've just met with the Turkish president

and they're removing opposition. They're no longer opposing Sweden's bid. It's going to be submitted to the Turkish parliament. And everyone was just floored. And this just immediately removed what would have been a huge stumbling block. And Stoltenberg said Sweden has done a lot. They've made some new laws. They've even amended their constitution to satisfy Turkey that they were considering, you know, possible terrorist acts by this group seriously. So everything changed on a dime. Gosh, I have to say that leading up to this, there was all of this like hand wringing, like Sweden's not going to get in. Turkey has all this leverage. It wants to use the leverage it has to. This is its moment to get what it wants. And I kept thinking, like, is there going to be a surprise reveal where Sweden gets in and they're like, yes, it's a successful NATO. And then it happened. And it's like one of those things where leading up to these summits, there often is this tension of will they be able to

work it out? Will it happen? And then often it does, whatever it is. You know, what I think is interesting here is that there was all this tension about how much member countries contribute to the alliance, too. And, you know, there was a big change that happened. Can you explain what they did? So NATO has now decided that they are going to raise the amount that countries contribute of their GDP to defense. So it used to be 2 percent%, but they weren't even meeting that before. That's what President Trump was so angry about. So 2% used to be the ceiling, like that was the upper, you know, what the countries needed to be spending on defense from

their GDP. And many countries weren't reaching it. It's now the floor. Everybody is spending that. And many countries are spending more than that because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. You know, Tam, I'm remembering when then President Trump would talk about NATO and he would always get so angry at members for not spending enough on their militaries. But now there's a more NATO friendly president in the White House and the Trump spending policy is now the default. So what's going on here? Right. And Trump was actually lambasting them for not spending enough on NATO or not giving enough to NATO, not really making the nuanced distinction that, in fact, what they were supposed to be doing was spending on their own defense, which contributes to the collective defense, because this alliance is a collective defense alliance. And as Eleanor said,

what happened? It's not Trump. It's not Biden. It's Vladimir Putin. Now, President Biden claims a lot of credit for uniting NATO and for bringing our alliances together and America is back and all of that. And certainly that is a factor. But the biggest factor is that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, made all of these countries realize like, oh, gosh, we do need to defend ourselves. We do need to spend more on defense because Russia is right there. And it's decided that a sovereign nation can be invaded. And so these nations are now spending more on their collective defense. Eleanor, how explicit was that reference to Putin and that discussion of the change being related to Putin? Everything is related to

Putin. I mean, he was the boogeyman behind the whole summit. And you just felt it. It was there. And we were in Lithuania, which was, you know, part behind the whole summit. And you just felt it. It was there. And we were in Lithuania, which was part of the Soviet Union. And we were so close, really, to the Belarusian border. So it all felt very close and very relevant. And so nobody even needed to talk about it. It was just there. In fact, Biden made reference to it. He gave this really rousing sort of, you know,

democracies will stay together against evil speech at Vilnius University right after the summit. And there were thousands of people there. There were even people listening out in the streets on their cell phones. But anyway, here's what he said. He's referencing Putin here. He's still making a bad bet that the conviction and the unity among the United States and our allies and partners will break down. He still doesn't understand that our commitment, our values, our freedom is something

he can never, never, ever, ever walk away from. It's who we are. I mean, it's who we are. So yeah, that was the mood there that night after the summit. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, NATO's increasing role in the war in Ukraine. And we're back. Ukraine has been top of mind for NATO and its members since the war began. Eleanor, what sort of commitments were made to help Ukraine's war effort? Well, they didn't get a timeline for NATO membership, but all the allies said Ukraine's future is in NATO. But what they got was like a permanent pipeline of weapons deliveries and support for as long as it takes. And Biden trotted out this new scheme with the G7.

It's a G7 scheme, but they invited other countries to join. It's like a long-term, massive, bilateral security commitment to help, as Biden said, Ukraine defend itself and deter future Russian aggression. We are going to help Ukraine build a strong, capable defense across land, air and sea, said Biden. And he said it's unwavering. It will never end. And so it was really, you know, no, they didn't get into NATO, but you did get the feeling that there was massive support for Ukraine. And so Zelensky sort of changed his mood. He was seemed resentful at first, but there's going to be F-16s coming. There's just going to be continued weapons for as long as they need them.

So, Tam, why would there be an unending commitment and all of this commitment to spending significant money on providing all of this support to Ukraine, but not a timetable for the country to join the military alliance as a full member? So the thing with NATO is that it has this Article 5 commitment. If one member is attacked, all are attacked. All are then essentially at war. And the countries of NATO do not actually want to be themselves at war with Russia. And so part of this is simply that Ukraine is in a hot war with Russia right now. And the NATO alliance, while obviously supporting Ukraine in very significant ways with deliveries of weapons and training and all of this, also want to keep something of an arm's length. there are still concerns that President Biden has voiced and others that Ukraine has not made

enough of the democratic reforms that would be required to be a full NATO member. All right. I'm going to put on my Congress hat for just a second, because there's also some domestic politics happening here that could be standing in the way of Biden really wanting to move forward. Right. I mean, we are seeing a huge division, particularly among Republicans in Congress and Republicans in the country, about whether or not the United States should even be continuing this level of support for Ukraine. Is that playing into Biden's thinking? Well, certainly what you have here is a really interesting divide in public opinion, where Democrats are much more likely to support the administration's actions to help Ukraine, and Republicans are much more likely

to have concerns. And support for Ukraine has diminished slightly. And that's all coming from the Republican side of the ledger, if you're looking at polls. Independents are more closely aligned with Democrats in support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia. And so you do have like a divided Republican side and a pretty unified Democratic Party on this. I mean, not wholly unified, but much more unified. President Biden is taking this approach where he just simply won't entertain the possibility that the U.S. would stop supporting Ukraine.

And he's been in this mode for a while now, where although, as you say, there is pushback from Republicans in Congress, at least some of them. You know, he still has people like Mitch McConnell and other key Republicans who support this effort. And so President Biden is just sort of powering ahead, telling the world the U.S. is going to be there for Ukraine, though we could be in for something of a budget battle in the months ahead. Yeah, that's for sure. And Eleanor, you know, NATO members are kind of used to being at the whim of the United States. It's the biggest member in the alliance and contributes the most money. But did you get the sense from the

summit that everybody is on the same page about Ukraine's accession? Or is there still consternation within that group? Yeah, Europe was kind of divided. And you had the Poles and the Baltic nations who wanted, you know, on buses there in Lithuania, there was like, while you're waiting on this bus, Ukraine is waiting to get into NATO. So there was these kinds of signs everywhere, because the Balts really want, you know, Ukraine to get into NATO sooner. And, you know, there were other countries holding back. But yeah, all this is shifting now with this war. I mean, people are so disgusted by the Russian army and Putin. And remember, the war is here on this continent. So you see, you know, President Macron used to be the Putin

whisperer. He was the one who would call up Vladimir Putin. No more. Those days are gone. And he reversed his stance. He's pledged long range missiles now to Ukraine. And he said in a security speech in Bratislava last month that the Polish ambassador to NATO thought was great, he said, Ukraine is now one of Europe's most powerful militaries. We need to have it in our security architecture. And so you get the feeling that the Europeans are coming together. And there's this also, Macron talks a lot about the European pillar of NATO. So you get the feeling that European countries that before maybe weren't pulling their weight,

like Germany, which has hugely increased military spending, they are now. And everyone is more reading off the same page. And I think this summit was able to take the different sort of perspectives on Ukraine and NATO and spending, and it just sort of glued them all together. It came together pretty seamlessly. And you still have differences, but there's no wide yawning gaps of differences. So I think it's safe to say that we will be watching where Ukraine's membership in NATO goes from here. But for right now, we're going to have to leave it there. Eleanor Beardsley, thank you so much for joining us.

You're welcome. And that's a wrap for today. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover politics. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thank you for wrap for today. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover politics. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.