Washington Wednesday: Shifting course at home and abroad

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 2nd of April.

Thanks for listening to WORLD Radio. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday. Today, obstacles to peace negotiations over the war in Ukraine. But first, the rise and fall of a nomination.

Here’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO: Just days after winning his election, President Donald Trump announced his pick for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

As a key supporter of Trump with a proven track record—the pick came as little surprise on the Hill. Since her nomination, Stefanik has been saying goodbye to Congress and the district she’s represented for 10 years.

Here she is on a farewell tour back in February.

ELISE STEFANIK : I have to say, I am truly overwhelmed by this unbelievable outpouring of love and support as we begin to close this incredible chapter and embark on a new one.

But on Thursday, Trump made a surprise announcement.

DONALD TRUMP: I said ‘Elise, would you do me a favor? We cannot take a chance – we have a slim margin we don’t want to take any chances; we don’t want to experiment.

Trump retracted his nomination for Stefanik to represent the U.S. at the UN. He said he couldn’t afford to lose Stefanik’s seat in the House of Representatives where Republicans hold a two-seat majority—one of the smallest in the history of the chamber.

He also cited a pair of upcoming special elections to fill two empty seats in Florida.

TRUMP: You have two races and they seem to be good it’s a Trump+ 32 area the one thing is that they’re spending like 12 million dollars and our candidate doesn’t have that kind of money, spending much less than that, like one-twelth, about a million dollars so the airwaves are blanketed. And you never know what happens in a case like that.

It’s a stark reversal. Stefanik has been one of Trump’s most loyal advocates in Congress and one of the most accomplished Republicans in the Conference.

STEFANIK: I am humbled to have made history as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at the time, to serve as the highest-ranking woman in House-elected leadership from either party, and the highest ranking New York Republican in Congress in over 100 years.

The move also says a lot about Trump’s feelings towards the tight margins in the House of Representatives. a situation he contributed to.

JOE POSTELL: I think that this was entirely foreseeable.

That’s Joe Postell, Associate Professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

POSTELL: Speaker Johnson was very clear about this well before this Congress got under way, that the more people Trump appointed from the House into his administration the harder it would be to get major legislation which Trump expects to get through the House.

Postell doesn’t think keeping Stefanik around is really about potentially losing that seat to a Democratic challenger. Instead, it’s more about the timing of how long that seat would have been empty—and how that could get in the way of other legislation.

POSTELL: I think the mindset here is less “we’re concerned about the current climate in the country” and more “that’s just in an area where you have a really narrow majority like this and you just need every vote you can get.”

But is one more vote really all that important? I asked Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, what adding those two Florida seats and keeping Stefanik around does for leadership.

STEVE SCALISE: They enable us to double our majority from two to four. Very significant—you’re doubling your majority. Four doesn’t sound like a large majority but when you only have a two-seat majority, it’s a big improvement.

For now, Stefanik returns to being a rank-and-file member. Here’s Michigan Congresswoman Lisa McClain, the New GOP House Conference Chair who has taken over the role Stefanik used to hold.

LISA MCCLAIN: Listen, we welcome Elise back with open arms. I feel horrible for the position that she’s in but trust me we are glad to have her back.

Speaker Johnson has said the conference will carve out a role for Stefanik on the chamber’s leadership but hasn’t said what that role will look like.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington.

EICHER: Turning now to peace talks for Ukraine.

American negotiators left Saudi Arabia last week with an announcement between Russia and Ukraine. The two warring nations agreed to a 30-day ceasefire and a deal to free up shipping lanes in the Black Sea.

MAST: The Trump administration says that it’s never been closer to peace, but the parties appear to have different ideas about what that word means.

Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has the story.

TAMMY BRUCE: There is one north star for everyone involved in this and it is the ceasefire and stopping the carnage.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce discussed the negotiations in a news conference this week.

BRUCE: President Trump of course um he knows and he understands and we operate with the realization that negotiations are going to require both Russia and Ukraine to make tough decisions and compromises.

The Kremlin added some conditions after the Saudi Arabia talks: Block Ukraine from joining NATO, and revoke U.S. sanctions on Russian banks. Meanwhile, Ukraine wants a guarantee that other nations will help defend them against Russian aggression.

For months, White House negotiators have met separately with Ukrainian and Russian delegations. After weeks of pressuring Ukraine to sign a minerals deal and agree to a ceasefire, Trump is now turning the heat on Putin by threatening more sanctions.

TRUMP: I want to make sure that he follows through and I think he will. I don't want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I I think you know it's something I I would do if I thought he wasn't doing the job.

Foreign policy analysts say the seesaw effect is typical of Russia. Daniel Kochis is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center on Europe and Eurasia.

DANIEL KOCHIS: I think that the Russians are probably going to go through with some kind of theater of negotiations, try to drag them out. Maybe the U.S. is able to get a temporary ceasefire, but I think getting that final point, I'm pretty dubious about that. And the reason is I don’t think the Russians want to settle the conflict right now.

President Trump said throughout his campaign that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one. Now, he says that stopping the bloodshed is the top priority. Here’s Kochis again.

KOCHIS: I think for many people in Washington it would be very uncomfortable to essentially bring the Russians back in from the cold and to start negotiations with them. I think that this administration has sort of put those qualms aside in their interest of pursuing a quick ceasefire and negotiations with the Russians.

Trump’s willingness to send envoys to Russia and hold hours-long phone calls with Putin also worries some in the national security community. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, political commentator Gordon Chang told WORLD it’s important to remember Russia is the aggressor.

GORDON CHANG: We didn’t negotiate with the Third Reich. We did not negotiate with Imperial Japan. Russia is an aggressive state. It's committing genocide. It's engaged in acts of brutality. We shouldn't be talking to it. We should be defeating it. And we can do that with tough sanctions… We can starve the Russians. If they don't have money, they are not going to be able to fight the war.

But sanctions take time. Other analysts argue that the U.S. is too involved in Ukraine’s war. Sumantra Maitra is a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank.

SUMANTRA MAITRA: Trump's worldview can be boiled down to some basic instincts when it comes to one foreign policy and to mercantilism. The man likes to have good trade deals. The man likes to have good relations with other great powers which could do us a lot of harm.

Along with stopping the fighting, Trump is focused on recouping some or all of the money the Biden administration dedicated to Ukraine. Since 2022, Congress has appropriated nearly $200 billion to responding to the war, nearly $120 billion of which flows directly to Ukraine’s government. Trump now says that’s a loan, not a gift. Maitra says Trump’s strategy speaks to his business background…and unwillingness to keep sending what amounts to blank checks to Ukraine.

MAITRA: We essentially kind of like kept giving them money. They were the ones who are deciding it and Trump kind of put a stop to that. So now it's kind of like in an old school way like we are the ones giving money. We're the ones giving, and so we're telling you what to do.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he’s open to working with the U.S., but he’s also holding out for security guarantees. Without the threat of American might, he is concerned Russia will violate any ceasefire.

ZELENSKYY: [SPEAKING UKRAINIAN]

In a video posted to social media earlier this week, Zelenskyy thanked European leaders for increasing their aid contributions. He also touted a recent summit in Bucha, Ukraine where leaders agreed that Russia should be held responsible for war crimes.

But Maitra says that as long as Ukraine stays out of NATO, the U.S. should not be so involved in the war. He argues that instead of pushing Russia away towards other enemies like China, Trump is right to start thawing relations.

MAITRA: At the end of the day, you cannot turn Russia to Switzerland. It's never going to be a Madisonian democracy, but we can have kind of like a negative equilibrium with this country. And that is what he aspires to achieve.

Meanwhile, Trump’s ceasefire deal appears to be fracturing before it’s even been drafted. On Tuesday, the Kremlin told Russian state media that it takes the U.S. proposals seriously but cannot sign the ceasefire as it currently stands.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

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