Democrats’ Perfect Phone Call to Zelensky

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is campaigning in Scranton, Pa.:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Pennsylvania on Sunday to visit a military facility in Lackawanna County that builds some of the equipment used in the weaponry his country is using in its war with Russia. Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-8th District) and other local officials were on hand for Zelenskyy’s tour of the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant (SCAAP), which builds 155-millimeter howitzer rounds for the U.S. Department of Defense. “Pennsylvania is the birthplace of American freedom and our Commonwealth proudly stands with the people of Ukraine as they fight for their freedom against naked aggression,” Shapiro said in a statement. Zelenskyy toured the 500,000 square-foot facility in President Joe Biden’s hometown, and thanked the workers there, signing some of the shells. During the visit, Shapiro also signed an agreement with the governor of the southeastern Ukraine city of Zaporizhzhia, “that will strengthen both states and foster collaboration for years to come,” he said. “Pennsylvania looks forward to building a close relationship with Zaporizhzhia as we continue to stand on the side of freedom.”

Photos credited to a Pennsylvania state agency and incorporated in a Shapiro press release showed Zelensky arriving in Pennsylvania in what appears to be a U.S. Air Force C-17, as seen in this video posted by Governor Shapiro:

Zelensky was also driven around in Secret Service vehicles, at a time when the agency has been conspicuously short on manpower for providing security for former president Donald Trump in the face of two assassination attempts. Who is paying for Zelensky’s air transit to Pennsylvania and his Secret Service car?

Zelensky does need to travel securely. And there’s a legitimate reason for the Ukrainian president to be in the United States, where he is speaking before the U.N. General Assembly. As is true of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he’s also acting well within his rights and his nation’s interests by using his appearances here to make his case to the American people and their leaders for aid to his nation. It’s his job to care about his country, not about ours. And given the nature of politics in a democracy, Zelensky’s mission here (like Netanyahu’s) will inevitably involve him to a certain degree in our own politics, because American politicians will compete to position themselves as his friends or his antagonists.

But the trip to Scranton is another matter. Casey and Cartwright, both Democrats, are active candidates for federal office. Pennsylvania is the most crucial swing state in the presidential election; Shapiro is a Democrat who spoke at the party’s national convention and was widely mentioned as a potential Harris running mate. The symbolism of Scranton being Joe Biden’s birthplace is lost on nobody. Zelensky didn’t really help matters by giving an interview to Joshua Yaffa of the New Yorker, just before departing for this trip, in which he took potshots at J. D. Vance:

Apart from Trump’s own reluctance to talk about Ukrainian victory, he has chosen J. D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential candidate.

He is too radical.

Vance has come out with a more precise plan to—

To give up our territories.

Your words, not mine. But, yes, that’s the gist of it.

His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice. This brings us back to the question of the cost and who shoulders it. The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable. But I do not consider this concept of his a plan, in any formal sense. This would be an awful idea, if a person were actually going to carry it out, to make Ukraine shoulder the costs of stopping the war by giving up its territories. But there’s certainly no way this could ever happen. . . .

What does it mean for Ukraine that people with such ideas and slogans are rising to power?

For us, these are dangerous signals, coming as they do from a potential Vice-President. . . . [Vance and others who share his views] should clearly understand that the moment they start trading on our territory is the moment they start pawning America’s interests elsewhere: the Middle East, for example, as well as Taiwan and the U.S. relations with China. Whichever President or Vice-President raises this prospect—that ending the war hinges on cementing the status quo, with Ukraine simply giving up its land—should be held responsible for potentially starting a global war. Because such a person would be implying that this kind of behavior is acceptable. . . . I don’t take Vance’s words seriously.

Zelensky has said that he intends to meet with Trump on his American trip, and to his credit, he also tried to triangulate in the New Yorker interview, observing of Vance’s comments, “I should say that it hasn’t been like this with Trump. He and I talked on the phone, and his message was as positive as it could be, from my point of view. ‘I understand,’ ‘I will lend support,’ and so on.” He also cautioned, “I think Ukraine has demonstrated the wisdom of not becoming captured by American domestic politics. We have always tried to avoid influencing the choices of the American people—that would simply be wrong.”

If the Biden-Harris administration (and/or the government of Pennsylvania) is using taxpayer money to ferry Zelensky to Scranton, that’s a problem. Recall precisely what it was that got Trump impeached in 2019, as I explained at the time:

Any benefit that the president obtains with the leverage of U.S. military aid to a foreign country should involve a public benefit to the American taxpayers who paid for that aid, not solely a personal or political benefit to the president personally. Using public resources for your own sole benefit is a textbook case of misappropriation of public funds. This is not a question of subjective motive: politicians often have impure motives, and many fine things have been done for the public interest by politicians who were just looking out for their own political interests. The right question to ask is whether taxpayer funds were used as leverage for something the public had no legitimate interest in, and which Trump did. The further along that scale we find ourselves, the more this looks like a genuine abuse of official power.

And while the misappropriation is less obvious if the benefit being dangled before Ukrainian officials is not taxpayer funds but a White House visit for the Ukrainian president or a visit by the vice president to Ukraine, these remain exercises of American power, which should be used for American national purposes.

Flying Zelensky out to a swing-state factory six weeks before Election Day with Bob Casey and Josh Shapiro is a lot further down that scale of purely political benefits than flying him to the White House or the U.N. It may also prove counterproductive for the Ukrainian cause, if it leads Trump to conclude that Zelensky is trying to help Harris win the election. Foreign interference in American elections isn’t only bad when it helps Donald Trump.