Watch the full event
Speaker
Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX),
Chairman, House Foreign Affairs Committee
Moderator
Ambassador John E. Herbst
Senior Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
Introduction
Frederick Kempe
President and CEO, Atlantic Council
Event transcript
Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery
FREDERICK KEMPE: Welcome to Atlantic Council Front Page, the Atlantic Council’s premier live platform for global leaders tackling today’s greatest challenges. I’m Fred Kempe. I’m president and CEO of the Atlantic Council.
We are delighted to welcome Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to the Atlantic Council. Even more, Mr. Chairman, we’re delighted to welcome you to the first Atlantic Council Front Page event in our new headquarters at 1400 L Street. And we hope all of you who are watching online will come visit us soon. And thank you to those who are here at the headquarters.
Chairman McCaul is currently serving his tenth term in Congress, representing Texas’s tenth district. In addition to serving as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman McCaul is the former chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security. He’s one of the nation’s strongest, most principled, and most consistent leaders on US foreign policy. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he’s been a staunch advocate for supporting Ukraine’s victory and resistance against Russian aggression.
It’s wonderful to have the Ukrainian ambassador here today. I know the Moldovan ambassador is here as well. Thank you to both of you for being here. Chairman McCaul’s impact is evident in his committee leadership, through which he has introduced critical legislation, such as the REPO for Ukrainians Act, overseeing the markup and passage of many other critical bills, supporting Ukraine in condemning and deterring Russia’s aggression. And he has pushed for the passage of aid to Ukraine.
Russia’s aggression is augmented by its growing partnerships with autocratic nations that we’ve been calling the axis of aggressors—Iran, China, North Korea—whose increasing collaboration pose an existential threat not only to the Ukrainian people, but also to Ukraine’s neighbors, and the US and NATO. And this, of course, is underscored by ten thousand North Korean troops in Russia at the moment, threatening Ukraine. For this reason, we at the Atlantic Council will continue to advocate for strong measures to ensure that Ukraine prevails.
Our discussion today will be moderated by Ambassador John Herbst, former ambassador to Ukraine, former ambassador to Uzbekistan, and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, whose team and teams across the Atlantic Council have really taken a lead on this set of issues. For those in the audience and for those watching virtually, submit your questions to AskAC.org, and we’ll get to your questions later in the show.
I’m now honored to welcome Chairman McCaul and turn to Ambassador Herbst to start this important Atlantic Council Front Page—this inaugural Atlantic Council Front Page conversation in new headquarters—to you. So, John, over to you.
JOHN HERBST: Fred, thank you very much. And Chairman McCaul, thank you for being here. As Fred said, you’ve been staunch in defending American interests as we deal with an aggressive Russia, an aggressive China, and North Korea, and Iran.
OK. Moscow has been waging this war on Ukraine for ten years. Their big invasion began almost three years ago. The US has provided substantial military and economic support to Ukraine since the big invasion. What are the US interests in this war and why are we engaged?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: It’s great question. I get asked that quite a bit from my colleagues. I want to thank the Atlantic Council for inviting me. And your new facility is beautiful. And my good friend, the ambassador from Ukraine, we’ve been through a lot together the past couple—it’s vitally important. I have to remind some of my colleagues about history. The 1930s. A lot of parallels today between 1939 and today. A lot of them didn’t grow up in the Cold War. I did. And Russia was not our friend. They were our enemy, an adversary. They still are today. You call it an axis. I call it unholy alliance that Chairman Xi and Putin made at the Beijing Olympics, two weeks before the invasion into Ukraine.
We knew it would happen after Afghanistan fell. We saw the satellite imagery of the Russian Federation moving towards Ukraine. And we warned the world about that. And, you know, obviously it did happen. Why is it important, though? I believe, if you get into Putin’s head, that his legacy is very important. He envisions himself as, like, a Peter the Great. Restoration of the Russian Empire is important to him. He was in Berlin when the wall fell and thought that his leadership betrayed him. That would be Mr. Gorbachev and then Yeltsin. He has great animosity towards them. And he feels it’s his responsibility to reclaim what is rightly Russia’s.
Ukraine’s always been the breadbasket of Russia. It’s always been the prize of Russia. Stalin obviously exploited that. Eight million Ukrainians died. We had Chernobyl. We had the Budapest agreement that was then violated. Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal. No enforcement mechanism. Ukraine’s been the victim for quite some time. But I have to say, are we—is the United States’ posture in the world stronger or weaker if we allow Mr. Putin to invade and take over all of Ukraine? I think it’s weaker. We’re projecting weakness, not strength. That would invite more aggression from Mr. Putin. It also impacts Chairman Xi and his calculus, looking at Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. Moldova would certainly fall within a day, as would Georgia.
And then, all of Eastern Europe would be under the threat and the dark cloud of Russian aggression. So therefore, if past is prologue, if we could have stopped Hitler in 1939 my dad wouldn’t have had to participate in that war. And I think the—I think the goals are similar in this case. And I think when you go to Ukraine they say, we’re fighting for you so you don’t have to fight this war. And I think that’s—there’s a lot of truth to that. They are fighting this conflict for us. And it’s our moral obligation and responsibility to stop aggression where it exists, to defend freedom and democracy against what is becoming now, between Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, a very formidable adversary alliance—or the unholy alliance, that I call it.
JOHN HERBST: Thank you. You know, you don’t need to just point to the past. Just remind those who don’t understand our interests here that every day Putin or someone in Moscow describes the US as Russia’s principal adversary and act that way.
You’ve already described what would happen if Russia succeeded—if Putin succeeded in Ukraine. You talked about it in terms of Europe. But you’ve mentioned, Fred mentioned, that anyone who could look at the geopolitical scene understands we do face increasing cooperation by our four foes, right? Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
Some people argue that China is our most dangerous adversary and they’re sure we should direct all of our geopolitical efforts to the Western Pacific. However, the leaders of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea say if we want to deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan make sure Putin loses in Ukraine. How do you see this?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, don’t take my word for it. I met with the Japanese ambassador from Japan and the national security advisor. Every Asian country I talk to, whether it be Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia—you know, the Indo-Pacific region, they all see it the same way, that what happens in Ukraine impacts Chairman Xi’s calculus as to whether he will invade Taiwan.
I do think China is the greater threat, the great power competition. AI warfare, the Indo-China—Indo-Pacific conflict could result in when you look at a World War III analysis that is the one I worry the most about.
We have two hot zones and they’re all tied together. You can’t separate the ayatollah from Putin. Putin invited Hamas to the Kremlin right after October 7. The alliance between Xi and Putin is clear. North Korea has now sent ten thousand troops into the conflict.
So all these four dictators—we don’t choose our enemies. You know, they choose us and, you know, when I gave my closing argument on the floor it was do you want to be—think about this vote because it’s historical, and do you want to be remembered as Chamberlain or Churchill?
Because that, at the end of the day, is the decision that we had to make. There were a lot of courageous members that did the right thing. There were members who were afraid of their own shadows.
But you know what? We didn’t get the blowback that everybody said we were going to get when we went back home. In fact, more people say thank you for standing up against Putin and what he’s trying to do.
And so I don’t know if that answered all of your question but, again, I view them all in this together. You really can’t separate them. You can’t say, gee, I’m against communist China but I kind of like Putin and Russia because they’re allies.
JOHN HERBST: You’re right. And, you know, some folks who oppose our policy of supporting Ukraine are all in for supporting Israel, which is good, but then they deny the connection between Russia and Iran. And, of course, when the Israeli forces went into southern Lebanon they found huge stocks of Russian weapons controlled by Hezbollah.
OK. The Biden administration just lifted, finally, restrictions on abilities—Ukraine’s ability to use our ATACMS against targets in Russia, something which you have advocated for not just months but first you advocated for years that they get the ATACMS and then without restriction.
At this late date when many Russian military assets have been moved out of the range of these missiles and, again, these long strikes only go a hundred eighty miles, right—so they don’t go deep into Russia the way people say—what will be the impact of this decision?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: The impact—well, better late than never. I’ll take you back to the very beginning of the conflict.
JOHN HERBST: Please.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: My frustration with the administration has been the slow walking of these defense articles that we promised we would deliver to Ukraine and, yet, you know, it started with the Javelins, the Stingers, and the HIMARS. For those of you who don’t know it’s another launching—the missile. F-16s to tanks. Finally, the ATACMS. That’s the long-range artillery.
Look, I empathize with President Zelensky and the ambassador. They can’t really bite the hand that feeds them. So I become the advocate and say things that maybe they can’t say diplomatically. But it is do not tie our hands behind our back. That’s not a way to win a war. You’re either all in or you’re out. And I think history’s always taught us that. If we’re only halfway in this thing, you get into a stalemate. And if you get into a stalemate, Russia wins. So give them everything they need now—that was two years ago—to win this fight.
We were told it would be over in five days. The Ukrainians proved us wrong. And when I—the resilience of the Ukrainian soldiers, and the citizen soldiers, I should say, in the toughness of this fight is why I think the will and determination of the Ukrainians is far stronger than the cannon fodder that Russia puts on its frontlines, which is why I’m optimistic. I’ve always been optimistic about this conflict. But I have not been optimistic about the slowness of the weapons.
What we’ve seen now with the threat of ATACMS now is that Russia is now receding its weapons. These glide bombs were coming across. Most of this is in the Kursk region. That’s where the ten thousand North Koreans are. I got a briefing yesterday. That is where the strongest part of the fighting is, and that’s where the ATACMS will be used. And they will be very effective because it will not just be air defense; it will be—it will be projected strength across border at Russia so they will have to retreat.
Why is that important? You know, I know that the president-elect met with Putin and said please do not escalate. He has not taken the president-elect’s advice. In fact, what we’re seeing is almost a counteroffensive now. And Ukraine, I believe, needs these ATACMS because, if and when the moment happens where a ceasefire is declared and a negotiation takes place, Ukraine has to be in the strongest possible position with the most leverage to get the best negotiation at the table. Right now they’re not there because of the slowness of, you know, Jake Sullivan and the National Security Council in delivering these weapons. Now that they have the ATACMS, I hope—and Kursk is actually part of—was actually Russian. Putin does not like that at all. And so I think the more they can push the Russians out, the better the map’s going to look at the end of the day.
JOHN HERBST: There have been some critics, including from the Republican Party, who claim that this provision of this authority to the Ukrainians is going to make it harder for President Trump to succeed—or, incoming President Trump to succeed with his peace initiative. Any thoughts on that?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I disagree. You know—
JOHN HERBST: Explain why, please.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: And maybe I’m in the minority in my party now; I don’t know. I always ask the question, what would Reagan do? To my Republican colleagues, what would Ronald Reagan do, the guy that brought down the Soviet Union? And now we have these pro-Putin Russian-loving people. I don’t understand it.
I think just the contrary: because the ATACMS can be used, the better leverage at the table Ukraine will have in the negotiating process. Without the ATACMS, they wouldn’t have that position of leverage. Better late than never. I wish it was sooner.
But if you look at the real leadership in the House on national security, it is the three national security committees. So the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner, agrees with me; and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers. They call us the three Mikes. And then we have Mike Johnson, the speaker.
So I remember talking to Mike Johnson the eve before he made his heroic decision to move forward with Ukraine aid. And I said, you know, at the end of the day, it’s not your district; it’s not even the United States; it’s the world that your decision will impact. And I said: Mr. Speaker, you want to be on the right side of history. And that’s what I appealed—history will judge us at this moment in time, and what side of history do you want to be judged on? And I truly believe that we’re on the right side.
JOHN HERBST: You’ve mentioned that Putin wants to, in effect, restore Moscow’s control over the entire post-Soviet space and you even say the entire space of the Warsaw Pact, which takes care of a bunch of NATO—new NATO members. If that’s true—and I think it is, with you—then it would seem to me the only way President Trump could have a peace agreement which ensures Ukraine’s survival—which he said is important to the United States, whereas others in his party have not said that—is to give Ukraine leverage. Would you agree with that?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I agree. You know, let’s go—what was Putin’s goal? It was to divide and weaken NATO. Just the opposite occurred. It’s now more united than it’s ever been. And it’s stronger than it’s—with the accession of Sweden and Finland, two great superpowers, if you will, in terms of military, the strength they bring to NATO is phenomenal. So now Putin is seeing that what he did is actually not working the way he had planned. I would say that he is the one losing, not Ukraine. But we can’t allow Ukraine to fall.
I think President Trump’s right about this. I still believe he has voices in his head—in his ear, like myself, like Mr. Waltz, who is on my committee, like, you know, Rubio, like Mike Pompeo, and Robert O’Brien, and likeminded, you know, people, probably more back from the Reagan era, that we can’t afford to lose this fight. And it’s vital to our national interests, because if Ukraine falls Taiwan is next. And that would be World War III.
JOHN HERBST: If you want peace, prepare for war.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Project strength. Reagan, it’s an axiom that’s historically correct. You project strength to get peace. Project weakness, you invite conflict, aggression, and war.
JOHN HERBST: OK. Thank you.
Coming back to the peace initiative, which President-elect Trump keeps discussing. While the key elements of the plan are obviously not public, we have certain indications. For example, Ukraine making some territorial compromise, perhaps a demilitarized zone between Russian and Ukrainian troops, perhaps in that zone European forces, perhaps arming Ukraine substantially so Russia doesn’t dare attack after this peace agreement. Almost every voice we’ve heard from Russia has essentially rejected these things. How do you see this negotiation playing out, given these circumstances?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I think it’d be very difficult. I know that President-elect Trump envisions himself as the great negotiator. I think Putin is a very, very smart, clever man. Don’t ever underestimate him. Once KGB, always. He wants all of Ukraine. That’s rightfully his, in his mind. It is rightfully part of Russia. It’s a breadbasket. I find it very hard to negotiate that. And, by the same token, very difficult for President Zelensky to acquiesce the Donbas and Crimea without having a revolution on his hands, after everything they’ve gone through. So I think this negotiation is not going to be easy. I think it’d be very, very hard on both sides.
But whatever—if a negotiation is finalized, my strongest advice is to put teeth into the agreement and put an enforcement mechanism. As you know, the greatest sin and weakness of the Budapest agreement, which took all the deterrence away from Ukraine to give up all their nuclear weapons, had no enforcement mechanism. So that when they gave all their weapons up, what happened after that? Then Russia moved into the Donbas in Crimea, with no enforcement. And we betrayed Ukraine. The world stage, NATO betrayed Ukraine at that moment. So if ever a negotiation is entered into again, you have to have enforcement.
JOHN HERBST: Good. OK.
You mentioned NATO. Obviously, the great peace that we’ve enjoyed since the end of World War II, no great-power war, perhaps is due to NATO more than anything else, and American power properly applied globally. NATO is the core as we face, as you call them, the unholy alliance. But what we’ve seen over the past six and seven months is, A, a much larger Russian sabotage campaign in NATO countries in Europe. But also, if we believe the Wall Street Journal, they were going to put bombs on DHL planes coming here and coming to Canada. That’s one. That’s been going on since April, say. And over the last two and a half months we’ve seen fairly regular violations of NATO airspace, Russian missiles and drones on their way to deliver their packages to Ukraine. NATO has done nothing against either of these provocations. What should NATO do? What should the incoming administration do about this?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I think strong warnings that if you continue this behavior, you’ll invoke Article Five of the NATO doctrine. You can’t continue to violate NATO airspace. You can’t threaten with bombs. You can’t threaten with tactical nukes. If you do—first of all, tactical nukes, that’s a red line for China. So you’re going to lose your biggest ally. But secondly, you are getting dangerously close to invoking Article Five, that will bring the full weight and power of that. The one thing that the president-elect did tell Putin was not to escalate, which he didn’t do. But we have a very strong military presence in Europe. And you know this. A tactical nuke would—again, China would abandon. And who knows where the radioactive cloud would—it’s got two directions it can go. It can go into Russia and kill his own people, or it can go west and into Poland, which I would argue would be a violation of article—it would invoke Article Five.
JOHN HERBST: You mentioned possible use of nukes. One thing Putin has done well, as he’s waged this revisionist campaign against us in our interests, since at least the cyberattack on Estonia in ’07 and the war on Georgia in ’08, has been to read Western leaders. And he’s found them wanting. Well, from his standpoint, amenable to his aggression, because they’re weak. It seems clear that one of the reasons why the administration, the current administration, has been slow in giving Ukraine the arms it needs and the permission to use those arms has been the fear of Putin’s nuclear threats, even though we passed six or seven Russian red lines. We’re now hearing similar arguments coming from parts of not the incoming administration, but parts of the incoming party. Why this weird synergy between the weak—one clear weakness in the Biden administration and people who want to make America strong again?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I find it very strange. I can’t explain it. I suppose there’s an isolationist wing within my party that possibly existed in the 1930s. And they were on the wrong side of history. When I saw the refugees coming out of Ukraine into Poland—the mothers and children and their fathers were left to fight the war—I said, this is like 1939, you know, all over again. I asked this very question of the analysts yesterday in a different setting. But I can tell you that their analysis is, this is bluster. It’s been bluster from day one. That they know the consequences of using a tactical nuke.
And quite frankly, from a military standpoint, it doesn’t—it wouldn’t do the damage that other weapons could do. But the damage it would incur to Russia would be face—they would lose face in the process, they would lose allies, and they could potentially invoke Article Five. And for all those reasons, I just don’t—that’s why I just don’t think they would do it. They will continue their cyberattacks. So the more you put Russia on the doorstep of Eastern Europe, the more you’re going to see threats to Europe.
Europe is almost like two different Europes. You got Eastern Europe and Western. And I’ll put the UK in a different category. But if you look at Germany, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, I asked the ambassador at the time, why do you want to have a pipeline from Russia that’s going to make you dependent on Russian energy? Well, we want Russia to be more of a trading partner. And we feel—there was also a bit of consciousness, guilt about World War II. And we saw how well Nord Stream 2 worked.
So if you talk to Eastern Europe, they’re very hardline against Russia, whereas Western Europe is a little—to your point—leadership is a little weaker. And it’s because they’re not on the front line. And the UK is in a different spot. I think they’re very much our ally in this fight. And I—you know, I passed AUKUS in the Congress, which unifies Australia, the UK, and the United States in an alignment to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.
JOHN HERBST: We’ve got three minutes before audience questions, but there’s one large issue we have to raise. You talk about history. And, you know, the Spanish Civil War was kind of the preview of World War II in Europe. And you might say that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine could be a preview of a great-power war to come. And one thing our military has learned from this war is how equipment intensive a great-power war would be. The US has not paid nearly enough attention to ramping up its arms production. Even since the big invasion, the steps forward have been relatively slow. How do you see this playing out? Are we going to get serious about returning the arsenal of democracy into operation?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I love that term, “arsenal of democracy.” If I go home and say, you know, the biggest threat to the United States is our defense industrial base, they don’t know what I’m talking about. But if I say the “arsenal of democracy,” they understand that. And that is our greatest threat and weakness.
And it’s not because of the weapons going into Ukraine. Those are older weapons. A lot of them are Russian from Eastern Europe.
I’ll give you an example. I sign off on all foreign military weapons sales. We promised Taiwan five years ago twenty weapons systems. They bought them. It’s not like we’re financing it; they actually paid for them. Only half of those weapons systems now have gone into Taiwan.
Now, that’s indicative of a global problem. And we need to change the way our procurement process works at the DOD, but we also need to change our defense contractors to be more agile and flexible with cost—not cost-plus, but fixed, you know, contracts.
A good example—I’m not going to—I’m not trying to favor one over the other, but Anduril is a very innovative company that anticipates what the customer wants, and they build it, and the customer buys it. When I was in Australia, there was the Ghost Shark. It’s about twenty-five, thirty feet. It’s a platform—AI, unmanned, electric, so there’s no signature—and it can develop sea mines, torpedoes, drones, and missiles all from one platform, either underwater or on the surface. How many of those would secure the Taiwan Strait, I asked? Probably six to eight.
JOHN HERBST: Interesting.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: And I said, how much do they cost? Ten to twenty million.
Now, that may sound a lot—like a lot of money to you all, but that’s—as you know, Ambassador, that’s—and imagine, this is President Xi’s greatest fear, is AUKUS, because the beast of the ocean, the nuclear subs, are rotating in. And now he knows that we’re on the verge of AI weapons systems like this that could go all throughout the Pacific.
JOHN HERBST: OK. Thank you.
One more quick question here. Some naïve individuals who don’t understand the Russian threat to the United States say, well, because China is the larger threat and we have a limited supply of weapons, we need to send them all to the Western Pacific. Your thoughts? They don’t talk—they talk about increasing production.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: They’re all in it together. When I gave my closing argument on the emergency wartime supplemental, I had a picture. There they were, all four, as a picture—Putin, and Chairman Xi, and the ayatollah, and Kim Jong-un, all at the same party. They are the same party, actually, and they’re all in it together. You cannot separate them. What happens in Ukraine will forecast the Indo-Pacific.
Why I worry about the Indo-Pacific even more so is that imagine Taiwan invasion and 90 percent of our advanced semiconductor manufacturing goes under, the tailspin that would create economically—which is why I introduced and passed, you know, the CHIPS Act. But what else will happen—let’s say a miscalculation in the Philippines, where I just came back, where the Chinese warships are violating Philippine territorial waters and the Chinese yell at us in Mandarin to go back—turn around, go home, Yankee, right? So—but imagine a miscalculation. We have a defense agreement with the Philippines. That would escalate into, my God, the United States and the Philippines are at war with China.
Who’s going to join China? Who are the allies of China? Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Against the United States, Australia, UK, Japan, South Korea, Philippines. That would be the World War III scenario.
JOHN HERBST: And we’ve been making progress—am I—am I wrong?—with NATO, getting them to engage in the Pacific.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Right. And you know, the national security advisor from Japan calls it we need a new NATO. Well, some in my party don’t like that word. But there’s an alliance.
And I will credit this administration for the treaty between—who would think Japan and the Philippines and South Korea would ever enter into a defense agreement? Now Vietnam is on the verge, and Indonesia, and Australia. And you know, when I’m over in the island nations, you know what they tell me? China, they’re not doing themselves any favors; they are creating more enemies than anything else because of their aggression. They see the threat from China and they are fearful and they want to stick together, you know, in this alliance—whatever you want to call it.
JOHN HERBST: As long as we’re strong that works really nicely.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: And it’s the will—if I could end with that, the will of the American people is going to be key, right? So we have an agreement with the Philippines that we are really mandated to oblige ourselves.
Taiwan is different, and some people will say why do we care about an island off the coast of China—why is Taiwan important. Well, it’s the aggression that would come after that. But if they don’t care about freedom and democracy, like, when I was growing up under Reagan and they don’t seem to care about freedom and democracy as much, but I can tell them it’s going to hit your pocketbook.
You won’t be able to drive your car. You won’t have semiconductor chips because 90 percent of those are manufactured in Taiwan, and you will have an economic tailspin.
JOHN HERBST: OK. I’m scrolling through the questions. I’ll take a question from anonymous because it’s most relevant to what you’ve just been discussing.
Given the administration—the incoming administration’s interest in this peace negotiation, some worry about what that—the terms of that settlement might be and the process to get there. How can Congress, which has demonstrated large bipartisan support for aiding Ukraine, ensure Ukraine continues to receive resources necessary to defend itself?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, Mr. Meeks and I are from different parties but we’re very unified and that’s the only way this works.
You’ll have fringes on the left and the right that will never vote for Ukraine but it’s the members in the middle, the sensible center—I’m kind of more center right than more center left—that will bring this coalition together.
I’ve never seen—and it was really the work of myself with the speaker and Mr. Meeks with Hakeem Jeffries to get a rule passed on Ukraine required us to get sixty or more Democrats to vote for a Republican rule.
Now, that’s unheard of but it happened in Ukraine on that vote, and that’s the only way. In our committee we try to be bipartisan and when we’re not we disagree civilly. But we don’t want to be divided because it’s always stronger as one nation, one voice. Our adversaries listen.
When we’re divided as a committee or a nation our adversaries and enemies see weakness. So this is, like, incredibly important that we stick together on this.
JOHN HERBST: Amen. OK.
We have a question from Sangmin Lee from Radio Free Asia: How can the US respond or how should the US respond to the North Korean troops in Russia fighting Ukrainians? And maybe heading into—
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, the ATACMS.
JOHN HERBST: Right. That’s a good thing.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Right. And the ATACMS will hit them hard.
Now, these are kind of their special forces but the ATACMS can hit them. It was interesting. We got a report that one of their own drones, actually, they didn’t know how to use it. It landed on them and blew up a lot of North Koreans.
Not to celebrate anyone’s departure but, you know, they’re not fully integrated with the Russians. They don’t speak the same language. They’re not trained. I think—and always try to see the light in a dark situation—this is creating a division between Russia and China because China they don’t like the fact that now North Korea is putting troops in there.
Why are they doing it? Because they want Russia to help them against this UN, you know, denuclearization agreement that the UN’s pushing for with North Korea. That’s precisely why they’re putting those troops in there. And they’re getting money.
JOHN HERBST: Do you think that North Korea is getting help with missile technology from Moscow?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Yes, and I would also say but for China—Russian military was decimated but for China they were resuscitated and they rebuilt their military because of China.
And I have told this administration and Mr. Sullivan—National Security Council—please apply secondary sanctions on China because they are rebuilding the Russian military and they—if I could elaborate.
JOHN HERBST: Please.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Two very strong sanctions I put—wrote into including ATACMS, I didn’t say “may be delivered”—“shall be delivered,” mandatory language, because I knew that they wouldn’t do it unless Congress mandated the ATACMS. And then, even though we mandate, they said, well, we’re not going to let them use it, you know, in these areas. You know, that’s gotten better, but what I—the other thing—two things we did was on Iran.
You know, China’s buying Iranian oil to the tune of about one hundred billion dollars. What’s that doing? That’s funding their terror operations in the Middle East. But what else are they doing? They’re sending their drones and missiles that they used—that they fired into Israel, same ones—they’re shipping those to Russia that then Russia uses to kill Ukrainians. Well, those sanctions were allowed to expire. So I put them back into the Emergency Wartime Supplemental. But they’re not being enforced. Why in the world are we not enforcing sanctions that would dry up Iran’s funding and prohibit weapon sales that kill Israelis and kill Ukrainians?
JOHN HERBST: Amen. OK. I have a question from Laura Kelly on the Hill.
You’re stepping down from the chairmanship. What advice do you have for whomever takes your place?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: God help you. I feel—our rules—we get term limited. But the rules actually were to my benefit. I’m one of the rare members that’s actually chaired two important committees—Homeland Security, at a very dangerous time after 9/11, and now Foreign Affairs as I see the world’s on fire. I wasn’t a direct cause and effect for these things, but I just happened to chair at a very critical time. So I’m liberated from the shackles of management. But I will not be bound—I will be—actually, have a little bit of freedom to speak my own mind.
I think the chair is going to be bound by whatever comes out of the White House. And while I certainly support most of those ideas, I will have some freedom and flexibility to speak my own mind and to try to influence and persuade people. And I think I will be given a role. And I never thought of myself as an older person, but as a sort of—maybe not senior statesman, but maybe a little bit older statesman in the Congress that my colleagues will listen to, that I can provide leadership to, in a different role. And I’ll have more time to do things like this. I’ll have more time to write. And I’m very much looking forward to, you know, this new role in the next Congress.
JOHN HERBST: Well, your voice certainly carries.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Thank you.
JOHN HERBST: We have several questions on Georgia, one about the obviously imperfect, if not fraudulent, election. Two, about the intent, it seems, by the current leader in Georgia to push the country closer to Moscow. And basically all asking, what can and should the United States do to prevent an end to democracy in Georgia, and an end to an ally to the West in the Caucasus?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: It’s a huge issue. In fact, Leslie Shedd, my comms director, went over and was one of the election watchers. You know, they’re mandated to vote in Georgia. Maybe that’s not a bad idea here. You get fined if you don’t vote. Now, how can you explain—why would they elect a pro-Russian president? Fraud probably is part of it. But there’s also a sentiment in Georgia that we don’t want to poke the bear, literally.
Like, you know, if we have someone that’s sort of friendly to Moscow, they’re not going to annex us. They’ll give us some space. I’m not justifying that thinking. I think that’s their sort of thinking as they’re on the doorstep of an invasion, which would certainly happen if Ukraine fell. And I really feel for the people Moldova. They know that they are going to be the first victim to fall if Ukraine falls. But democracy is under threat, everywhere Russia—all the borders of Russia, there’s a threat to democracy.
JOHN HERBST: OK, last question, from Doug Klain with Razom.
The Biden administration has pledged to make full use of available drawdown authority by the end of its term. There are reports that some, or more than some, of military systems won’t arrive until well into the next year, into the new administration. What does President Biden do—what can he do to fix this while he has two months in office?
MICHAEL MCCAUL: I think—now, I actually agree with pulling down the drawdown authority and utilizing that now so that no one can take that away. And I mean, that was the intent and will of Congress. So, just like the weapons were, give it to Ukraine. Don’t hold it back.
Personally, I know that loans is a big issue, but you know, World War II we had Lend-Lease, and we forgave a lot of loans to the UK. And I think we’ll do the same thing, you know, with Ukraine.
And then I think there will be an intense debate—I can’t lie about this, or certainly want to be honest that there will be a very intense debate in the new Congress. Now, this is getting into the weeds of how Congress—either we’ll have a CR, continuing resolution, at the end of the year, which is terrible for the military; or we’ll have a full spending—a minibus or omnibus. Either way, that’ll happen either in December or—March 1, that would be the length of the CR. And that’s when the debate on additional funding, you know, for Ukraine, you know, will come up.
We can’t afford to lose this fight. And NATO in many respects, I think, is stronger today because of the 2 percent that President Trump mandated. But they’re also very strong—we went to the NATO conference. What was Putin’s response to that? He fired a—intentionally fired a missile and hit a children’s hospital the day before the NATO conference, shot across the bow.
JOHN HERBST: Correct.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: That shows you how evil this man is.
JOHN HERBST: And no response from NATO or the United States to that provocation.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: No response, and I—shameful. I think NATO and the will of NATO in Europe is in many respects stronger on Ukraine than the United States is.
JOHN HERBST: Yes.
Well, I think our time is up. It’s been a real pleasure having this conversation with you, Mr. Chairman. And we’ll be happy to invite you back when you have—are freed of those responsibilities. OK. Thank you very much.
MICHAEL MCCAUL: Thanks for your service, too.
Watch the full event
Further reading
Mon, Nov 18, 2024
Putin got into Biden’s head about ‘red lines’ in Ukraine. Trump must not be as timid.
New Atlanticist By John E. Herbst
News that the Biden administration will allow Kyiv to use Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) against military targets in Russia is welcome but overdue.
Wed, Nov 13, 2024
Trump is inheriting a more dangerous world
Inflection Points By Frederick Kempe
China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are coordinating in unprecedented ways, posing new challenges to the incoming US president.
Mon, Nov 18, 2024
Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not stop Putin or bring peace to Europe
UkraineAlert By
Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not bring about a durable peace in Europe. On the contrary, it would leave Ukraine at Putin’s mercy and set the stage for a new Russian invasion, writes Mykola Bielieskov.
Image: U.S. Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Photo by Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA.