The NPR Politics Podcast - Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's President, Addresses Congress

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a video address before Congress Wednesday, in which he asked for additional support to protect the country's citizens against Russian military brutality.Following the speech, Biden pledged to send an additional $800 million to Ukraine to boost security measures. This is in addition to $200 million in military aid to Ukraine Biden approved on Saturday.One ask that Zelenskyy is not likely to see answered: a U.S.-led no fly zone, which the Biden administration opposes as it seeks to avoid a direct military conflict with Russia.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, acting congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Ahmed from Dallas. I just finished my oath-taking ceremony to become a U.S. citizen. I would like to thank the NPR Politics Podcast and Parks and Rec for introducing me into the rollercoaster world of U.S. politics. This podcast was recorded at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 16th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Enjoy the show. Wow. Well, I'm very proud that we provided our civic duty, of course, along with Parks and Rec. Congratulations.

I didn't realize we were in the same category. Hey there, this is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And today on the show, Ukraine, the view from Capitol Hill and the White House. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky made a direct appeal to Congress earlier today, pleading with lawmakers to help his country defend itself against this Russian invasion. I'm addressing the President Biden.

You are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. And then a couple hours later, President Biden spoke to those concerns. And let there be no doubt, no uncertainty, no question. America stands with the forces of freedom. We always have and we always will. So Deirdre, before we get into the content of either one of those speeches today, let's just talk about the moment. I will say it seemed incredibly rare to have a foreign leader address Congress, let alone in the middle of a war when his country is legitimately under attack. Yeah, I mean, occasionally foreign leaders

do come to Washington and address Congress, but not under these circumstances. I've covered a fair amount of joint addresses in my time when members funnel into the House chamber, and sometimes they don't all decide to attend. They're not as interested, and they have to fill up the seats with interns. But today, that Capitol auditorium down in the visitor center was jam packed. I mean, there were a flood of lawmakers coming out and they were all, you know, really praising President Zelensky and really impressed by, you know, sort of the moment he's facing and really felt the need to rally around him. And there were a couple of requests that Zelensky made directly. One was for a no-fly zone, which the Biden White House has been very clear it does not support because it would mean that the U.S. or NATO would have to shoot down Russian aircraft,

and they're worried that this would potentially put the U.S. into direct armed conflict with Russia. But it is something that Ukraine's President Zelensky spoke about and directly asked for today. And he was speaking in Ukrainian with his words being translated through an interpreter. Is this too much to ask? Humanitarian no-fly zone, something that Russia would not be able to terrorize our free cities. But Zelensky also asked for some other things. He asked for more sanctions. He asked for more weapons as well. Right.

And I think the majority of members of Congress do not support a no-fly zone at this point in time. I think they knew that President Zelensky was going to push again for that. There's a lot of concern on Capitol Hill that that would risk drawing the U.S. into a wider conflict. But there was pretty almost unanimous bipartisan support from the lawmakers I talked to about the need to respond quickly to the requests for additional weapons systems, additional humanitarian support. And, you know, that came from sort of all ends of the political spectrum. You know, it's hard to imagine being the leader of Ukraine at this

moment and not asking for a no-fly zone. He may know perfectly well that NATO and the United States are not going to do that, but he needs to be asking for it for his own people's sake. He needs to be their leader, their protector. And it also helps by setting the bar up there to get some of the other aid that we're eager to provide. If he's asking for something he knows perfectly well we can't do. audience was members of Congress, but unlike previous sessions where President Zelensky has talked to lawmakers that were in private, this was public. This was being released through media channels, and he knew the broader audience was the American people. He also specifically name-checked President Biden at the end of his speech where he spoke in English and appealed to him directly. So, you know, President Zelensky used this address to Congress really as a platform to make his case that the country, the U.S., needed to step it up. The U.S. needed to recognize sort of what the stakes were in his country's battle against the Russian invasion.

You know, to that point, this speech at times did seem to be tailored to an American audience. He invoked Mount Rushmore, Martin Luther King Jr. He also spoke of Pearl Harbor in 9-11. Remember Pearl Harbor, terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was black from the planes attacking you. Just remember it. Remember September the 11th. A terrible day. And Ron, I'm curious what you made of those historical references. I mean, it did seem to be that he was not just appealing to the politicians in the room, but more broadly to the American public. He was talking about days that Americans remember as a sort of national memory of great terror, and terror specifically from the skies. He was talking about Pearl Harbor, an aerial attack on our naval base in Hawaii in 1941.

And then he's talking about 9-11, which of course is, if you will, the apex of American memory of terror coming from the skies, the airplanes striking the buildings. And so he was making an analogy there to a very deep, profound memory that Americans have of what it's like to be left vulnerable to what may come down from the skies. That was his appeal for the no-fly zone. And of course, also an appeal just to connect with a larger American audience beyond Congress. All together, this was a rather dramatic presentation. You know, there was a portion of his speech where the president showed a video and it just was images of the devastation in Ukraine. And then after the

video ended, Zelensky made the rest of his speech in English, which, you know, is a portion of what we heard up top at the beginning of the podcast. And it was, it was dramatic. I mean, I know we've spoken about this, and I don't mean to make light of it. But Zelensky, he has a performance background, he is a performer, and it did feel like he knew how to appeal certainly to the emotions of the American public and to the politicians in the room were crying watching that video. And he said, a lot of people, you wouldn't expect to see tear up in a congressional joint address. And they said, you know, another lawmaker I talked to, Jason Crow from Colorado, was an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran. And he said he thought the American people and members of Congress who haven't served needed to see something that dramatic. They needed to see that this was not an abstract discussion, that this was really about, you know, what happens in

a war and the devastating impacts. All right, well, let's take a quick break. We'll have lots more to discuss in just a moment. And we're back. And Deirdre, you've been reporting from the Capitol. And I'm curious how you would say that Zelensky speech was received by members of Congress. I know you spoke a bit about this earlier. You know, I'm really interested in whether you observed any of the usual Republican and Democratic divisions that we are so accustomed to seeing on pretty much any issue. Or was there actually bipartisan kind of consensus on this? I think there is bipartisan consensus that the United States should be sending more weapons, more humanitarian aid, should be pushing our allies to further isolate Russia. But there were, as you would expect, some of the usual partisan divisions. A lot of Republicans personally attacked President Biden for not acting quickly enough, saying that he was not leading, but that he was following European allies and the United States should be the nation that is leading the efforts in terms of the response to the invasion.

The tradition in American history has been that politics ends at the water's edge, that supposedly Congress gets itself together and acts in a bipartisan fashion when the country is threatened. On the other hand, many of the wars that we have experienced in our time have been wars that divided Congress. Vietnam certainly did. And we saw a lot of division in Congress develop over the Iraq War. And we saw division even over the first Congress develop over the Iraq War. And we saw division even over the first Gulf War back in 1990, 1991. So there was division. But when the decision was made, there was united support for American troops. Now, there are no American troops involved in this particular conflict. But there is the opportunity for the United States in concert with NATO, and that does risk in really important ways the future security

of this country and, well, of civilization when you start mixing in the talk of nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise. That is a truly frightening prospect. And so it should be a uniting prospect, and we'll see if it is. to use chemical weapons and what kind of red lines the U.S. and its allies would have to start talking about and having conversations about how they would respond and whether, you know, in the event of something dramatic happening on the ground, whether that would change some lawmakers' views about the U.S.'s involvement, you know, more directly in the conflict or more actively in terms of sending additional weapons that could step up the threat. So I think that, you know, there's a recognition that this is going to be a long conflict. But as, you know, we see,

unfortunately, if there are more images like those in the video today, you know, what does that mean for what the United States does? It does seem, though, in the video today, you know, what does that mean for what the United States does? It does seem, though, in the immediate sense that there is bipartisan agreement, at least in giving security assistance. We saw that President Biden approved $800 million more in security assistance to Ukraine today. And just a bit ago, you know, he outlined what that whole package would be. It includes anti-aircraft systems, anti-armor missile systems. He spoke even about drones. And, you know, to your point, Ron, U.S. troops, he's been very clear the president will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia on the ground in Ukraine. But there does seem to be agreement amongst both Republicans and Democrats to provide

as much security assistance as possible to the Ukrainians. Though, you know, I do wonder how that will play out over the long run, because we heard the president say today that he wants to be honest with the public. This could be a very long and difficult battle ahead. This is not a matter of days or even weeks. This is a matter of months or perhaps more. Yet at this moment, there is enough emotional support. There is as much true sympathy here for the Ukrainian plight, that the popularity of this assistance was enough to pull the much, much larger omnibus appropriations bill, $1.5 trillion that they couldn't seem to get past. It got through last week, because they attached this Ukrainian aid, and that made it all the more

difficult to vote against it. So this is the moment to make the commitment. This is the moment for the United States and for NATO to do the most that they can and to hope that the will to pursue this, this move that's been made by Vladimir Putin can be isolated to that individual and persuade Russians that they do not need to back this policy or this man. And I think in terms of Congress's moves next, I think a lot of lawmakers think President Biden can do a lot of these things on his own without votes on Capitol Hill. But one thing we are expecting Congress to do soon is to vote to revoke most favored nation trading status from Russia. That vote could happen next week in the House. All right. Well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.

I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for joining us on the NPR Politics Podcast.