Yesterday, my dear colleague Helge, who, to his credit, is a regular reader of this fine publication, asked me why Congress is fumbling aid to Ukraine. A good German, very much a man of the world, he seeks to understand the machinations of American politics. I tried to explain why aid to American allies got packaged with a border security bill and why that package is floating in political limbo.
For those of you who haven’t been watching this slow-motion car crash, the plan aims to resolve the prolonged deadlock on military assistance for Kyiv, given concerns about depleting weapons and supplies for Ukrainian forces. The strategy involves linking this military aid proposal with the more stringent border security measures advocated by House Republicans and House Speaker Johnson. Johnson has been adamant about not allowing a vote on the bill. But why? Does he not, despite all he has urged, want to support our allies and tighten border security?
The proposed law, dubbed “The Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act”, aims to allocate $66 billion to the Defense Department for assistance to nations in conflict. This includes approximately $47 billion for Ukraine, $10 billion for Israel, $5 billion for the Indo-Pacific, and $2 billion for supporting operations in U.S. Central Command.
It also seeks to reinstate the "Remain in Mexico" policy for a duration of one year. This policy mandates that individuals, including those seeking asylum, who wish to enter the U.S. must return to the country they departed from while their proceedings take place in the U.S.
As troubling as the “The Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act” may sound to you, it should have passed already. There is but one reason it has not.
His name is Donald Trump. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He likes to give nicknames to people.
The Trump team reached out to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who Trump donned, “The Old Broken Crow,” and told him to kill the bill.
When McConnell did not respond immediately, Don took to Truth Social, a platform for miscreants and bots, to say the Kentucky Republican has a "death wish" for backing "Democrat-sponsored bills." Death wish? Sheesh. Why ya gotta be such a don, Don?
Oh, right.
You would think the Old Crow would, if only to prove he’s not broken, crow back at the Tangerine Palpatine, telling him to stay in his lane.
You would also think that after the racial language Trump levied at McConnell’s Taiwanese-born wife, Elaine Chow:
“Does Coco Chow have anything to do with Joe Biden’s Classified Documents being sent and stored in Chinatown?”
…that Old Mitch would put some Old Crow energy into passing the bipartisan Senate bill. Alas, said McConnell, “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him.” We don’t?
McConnell even referred to Trump as “the nominee” during a closed-door session.
Trump, and thus the collaborationist Republicans, don't want a border bill passed because then they can run in 2024 on the Democrat’s failure to take action on the border.
Trump, not yet the nominee, is fiddling with the US-Mexico border issue and sticking a monkey wrench in American foreign policy. His actions are responsible for unfathomable suffering and death.
I want to raise a concern about Trump’s behind-the-scenes impact on American foreign policy and note that it’s not without precedent.
In 1968, Richard Nixon, who seems to have some influence on Trump, was running for office. Having been defeated (humiliated in his eyes) by Kennedy by .1% in the popular vote in the 1960 presidential election, Nixon was hellbent on winning.
The key to Nixon’s victory over Humphrey was to keep the focus of the 1968 campaign on the Vietnam War, which the Johnson administration was losing. The key to Trump's victory is to keep the focus on the border.
As the campaign progressed, Nixon had a lead over Humphrey, but by October, the margin was narrowing. Henry Kissinger, an external Republican adviser at the time (and soon to be a celebrated war criminal) informed Nixon that a potential agreement was being negotiated: if Johnson ceased all bombing of North Vietnam, the Soviets promised that Hanoi would participate in discussions to bring an end to a conflict that had already resulted in the loss of more than 30,000 American lives.
If LBJ managed to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table before the election, the Dems, despite being desperately divided, could win in ‘68.
Nixon would not be humiliated again.
So Nixon instructed Bob Haldeman (soon to be Nixon’s Chief-of-Staff, later to spend 18 months in prison for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury for his role in the Watergate scandal) to have Nixon’s personal secretary Rose Mary Woods (who in 1972 “accidentally” erased 5 incriminating minutes of the Watergate tapes) reach out to an influential figure in the nationalist Chinese community, Louis Kung, to ask him to exert pressure on Nguyen van Thieu. Nixon had Woods "instruct him to stand firm” and reject a peace deal from Johnson.
But Johnson was close to getting the Vietnamese to Paris to sign a ceasefire.
So, desperate, Nixon involved Washington socialite, Anna Chennault. Chennault was the widow of General Claire Chennault, the commander of the famed Flying Tigers in China during WWII. Born Chan Sheng Mai in Beijing, she was a prominent Republican member of the U.S. China Lobby. In the 1968 election, Chennault was the chairwoman of the Republican Women for Nixon Committee.
In the beginning of 1968, Chennault became an intermediary, facilitating communication between the Nixon campaign and the South Vietnamese government. Her primary point of contact was the South Vietnamese ambassador, Diem.
Within the Nixon campaign, John Mitchell was Chennault’s contact (Mitchell was soon to be Nixon’s Attorney General and served 19 months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate affair). In one communication between Mitchell and Chennault, Mitchell said:
“Anna, I'm speaking on behalf of Mr Nixon. It's very important our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you have made that clear to them. Do you think they have decided not to go to Paris?"
Johnson saw Nixon’s efforts as the epitome of hypocrisy. However, in recorded conversations, LBJ expressed concern that making Nixon’s actions public would necessitate disclosing the FBI's surveillance on the ambassador Diem’s phone and the NSA intercepting his communications with Saigon. So Johnson chose to remain silent.
Silent but furious! He authorized additional wiretaps and privately complained that Nixon's endeavors were tantamount to "treason." However, lacking concrete evidence implicating Nixon directly, Johnson again chose not to not go public.
In any event, Nixon's attempts were not seeming to work. Just five days before the election and with the North Vietnamese not having agreed to peace conditions, Johnson appeared on television and declared a cessation of bombing.
Nixon, desperately afraid of being humiliated again, indeed afraid for his political life, sought to step it up. We have the evidence. Haldeman writes:
In a conversation with Everett Dirksen, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, Johnson lashed out at Nixon:
“I’m reading their hand, Everett. This is treason!”
In a hushed, mournful tone, Dirksen said, “I know.”
Days later, urged by Nixon and his cronies, though not necessarily as a result of their urgings, Thieu announced his government would not engage in peace talks. Less than a week later, Nixon was elected president with a .7% margin of victory.
“My God. I would never do anything to encourage South Vietnam not to come to the table,” Nixon said to Johnson in a conversation captured by the White House taping system. Nobody ever accused Nixon of having a commitment to honesty.
And to be fair, we can’t conclude that LBJ could have reached a peace deal without Nixon’s backdoor interventions.
But we can learn from history and be watchful for unscrupulous candidates, who fearful of humiliation, desperate to advance their political rule, might seek to throw a monkey wrench in American foreign policy.
The war raged on for 4 more years, ending in March 1973. 3 million military and civilian Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans died in the war (22,000 on Nixon’s watch). Nixon secretly spread the war to Laos and Cambodia.
Johnson was trying to end the Vietnam War as an “October Surprise” before the term “October surprise” was coined by the Reagan camp to articulate concerns that President Carter might exploit the Iran hostage crisis, securing a release of the hostages shortly before the election.
There is ample evidence that candidate Reagan used backdoor channels to prevent the Iranians from releasing the 52 hostages that had been seized from the American Embassy in 1979. It’s a helluva story that continues to develop as the powerbrokers of that generation leave their last wills and testaments.
It is evident that the Reagan team was speaking to the Iranians, begging them to keep the hostages until after the 1980 election. The president of Iran at the time, Abolhassan Banisadr, has bluntly stated that, “the Reagan campaign struck a deal with Tehran to delay the release of the hostages in 1980.” Other elite Iranian officials have corroborated this. But you don’t have to trust them. There are plenty of trustworthy Americans who can speak to the actions taken by he Reagan campaign at the expense of the safety and well-being of American hostages.
Nixon almost certainly knew about his campaign’s monkey wrench; it’s less certain that Reagan was aware of the monkey wrench his campaign was throwing to prevent the release of the hostages.
Reagan won. Iran did not release the hostages until minutes after noon on January 20, 1981, when Carter left office.
I have no doubt that both Nixon and Reagan, neither of whom I particularly adore, have a substantially more firm moral core than Trump.
Remember the October Surprise of the 2016 campaign? Of course you do!
Trump told Billy Bush, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything...Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
You can do anything.
Watch out!
Yours,
DL
Note: CBS’s John Dickerson published a great podcast on the Chennault Affair. Also, fun fact: Bob Haldeman spent his 18 months in prison testing sewage. There’s justice.