Politico

President Joe Biden and the first lady will travel on Friday to Lewiston, Maine, to meet with survivors of a mass shooting that left 18 people dead and injured more than a dozen others.

The trip comes after an invitation to the president from Maine Gov. Janet Mills earlier this week. After officials found the shooter dead on Friday after a days-long manhunt, the state has been able to shift from crisis mode to dealing with the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting this year.

“The President and First Lady will pay respects to the victims of this horrific attack and grieve with families and community members, as well as meet with first responders, nurses, and others on the front lines of the response,” the White House said in a statement.

Maine is the latest state the president has had to visit in the wake of gun violence. Even after Biden has signed several executive actions and a historic gun safety bill, gun violence has remained a pervasive problem throughout Biden’s three years in office, and remains the number one killer of children in the United States.

Biden and his administration has invested in community violence intervention. Following back-to-back shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, the White House worked with a bipartisan coalition in Congress to pass the first gun legislation into law in nearly three decades. That deal, signed by Biden in June 2022, toughened background checks for young gun buyers, helped states implement red flag laws and kept firearms from more domestic violence offenders. The following month, the Senate confirmed the first director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms since 2013.

In September, the president also announced the creation of the federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention, tapping Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide who previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council, as its director. Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox were announced as deputy directors. Vice President Kamala Harris oversees the new office.

Jackson, a gun violence survivor and advocate, was on the ground in Lewiston earlier this week, meeting with officials and community members.

As California Gov. Gavin Newsom met in China with Chinese government officials last week, a top federal prosecutor in his home state quietly told Congress that Beijing is trying to influence elections in California.

“We’re the gateway to Asia,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the central district of California, said in a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee on Oct. 24. “And we have the People’s Republic of China trying to influence our elections, trying to target some of our individuals.”

Estrada’s comment is the latest sign of the evolving threats of foreign election interference as the U.S. heads into the 2024 election cycle. In recent cycles, most attention has focused on Russian interference, but in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, intelligence officials warned that China, too, was ramping up efforts to sway state and local races by boosting candidates seen as favorable to Beijing’s interests.

And in recent months, California government officials have had heightened concerns about China’s interference in the state’s elections, according to a state official granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

Public disclosure of Estrada’s comment underscores the political minefield of broadened engagement with China not only for a top state official like Newsom, but also for the Biden administration. Newsom, whose chief focus on his China visit was climate, faced blowback from human rights activists and Republican China hawks for making the trip at all, and President Joe Biden is already taking heat for a planned upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Estrada’s congressional interview last week mostly dealt with an unrelated matter: the federal probe of Hunter Biden. The interview was not public, but POLITICO obtained a transcript. In the interview, Estrada did not elaborate further on China’s influence efforts, and a spokesperson for his office declined to comment for this story.

Joe Kocurek, an aide to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, told POLITICO that for years, the state’s elections office has been taking steps to fortify the elections systems and to inoculate the public from disinformation — “an approach based on our own concerns and at the advice of U.S. security agencies,” Kocurek said.

“These efforts are in response to a number of identified foreign threats, including from Russia, Iran and China, as well as from emerging domestic bad actors,” added Kocurek, a deputy secretary.

Estrada spoke to the committee one day before Newsom became the first governor in four years to meet with Xi. Newsom did not discuss election interference during that meeting.

“There were issues the Biden administration did want us to raise, and this was not one of them,” Anthony York, an adviser to the governor, said.

Ahead of Newsom’s trip, which was primarily focused on bolstering cooperation with China on climate change, he and his staff held several briefings with National Security Council officials, the U.S. State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, York said. Those talks didn’t include threats of Chinese election interference.

After the meeting, Newsom said he discussed human rights violations and anti-democratic efforts in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan. He also raised the plight of California pastor David Lin, who has been imprisoned in China since 2006, and the scourge of fentanyl.

“These were honest conversations,” Newsom told reporters on Tuesday. “They were pointed, but no fingers were being pointed. And the overriding purpose was around a substantive desire to engage and a need and desire to reconcile our differences.”

Biden is set to meet face-to-face with Xi next month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.

Biden appointed Estrada last year to be the top federal prosecutor in California’s central district, an area that includes Los Angeles. House Judiciary Republicans sought to interview him about his decision not to formally team up with Delaware prosecutors investigating the president’s son.

In the interview, a staffer asked Estrada about how closely he monitored work by the Delaware prosecutors in his district. Estrada replied by laying out the enormous swath of issues faced by his district — signaling that he had other priorities, and insufficient bandwidth, to track the day-to-day moves of prosecutors focused on the president’s son.

“We have a national security section, a division, unlike most other offices,” before going on to note China’s election influence efforts.

Estrada’s office has not recently brought any charges related to Chinese efforts to influence U.S. elections. But the office has prosecuted a number of sensitive Beijing-linked cases. In one recent case, a U.S. Navy sailor pleaded guilty to gathering sensitive military information for a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for more than $14,000 in bribes. Estrada’s office also secured a guilty conviction of a Chinese billionaire’s company for bribing a Los Angeles city councilman. That former councilman, José Huizar, also pleaded guilty to financial crimes early this year.

In July of 2022 — a few months before Estrada was confirmed as U.S. attorney — a top U.S. counterintelligence agency warned state and local officials that the Chinese government was trying to persuade them to advocate for Beijing’s interests.

“The PRC understands U.S. state and local leaders enjoy a degree of independence from Washington and may seek to use them as proxies to advocate for national U.S. policies Beijing desires,” the report reads, “including improved U.S. economic cooperation with China, and reduced U.S. criticism of China’s policies towards Taiwan, Tibetans, Uyghurs, pro-democracy activists, and others.”

And Facebook’s parent company, Meta, released a report in September of 2022 describing small networks of fake Chinese social media accounts that aimed to influence U.S. public opinion in the lead-up to the midterms. Some of the accounts posed as liberal Californians.

Mitch McConnell is abandoning his typically cautious style when it comes to aiding Ukraine, shrugging off potshots at his leadership and expending political capital for the embattled country despite a painful rift in the party.

McConnell is at odds with new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, who wants to split off Israel aid from Ukraine funding rather than pass a sweeping national security package. And the Senate GOP leader faces brewing discontent within his own conference, which is buzzing over whether to stick with McConnell or side with conservatives who want a strategy change on Ukraine.

McConnell’s public and private lobbying efforts to greenlight tens of billions of dollars in Ukraine assistance is a sharp deviation from his usual more reserved, consensus-building approach. He’s going to significant lengths to win over reluctant GOP senators and is on a collision course with the new speaker.

On Monday, McConnell will appear alongside Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, at the University of Louisville to again publicly commit the United States to Kyiv’s defense against Russia, a striking move amid the intraparty tension. That follows Sunday show appearances — a rarity for the minority leader — and public and private remarks in the Senate over the past week stumping for a sweeping aid request tying together help for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine as well as border security.

It’s too early to count out McConnell, who some suspect could be in his last term leading the Senate GOP — and Ukraine could be a huge part of his legacy. What’s more, this moment marks what’s almost certainly the last congressional battle over Ukraine assistance until the presidential election.

It’s also entirely possible he has to reevaluate the best strategy for Ukraine. For now, as one GOP senator put it: “I don’t think there’s much appetite” for McConnell’s envisioned security package.

“He came through the Cold War era and is a profound believer that this is a moment in history that the United States needs to assert leadership. And that if we don’t, there are going to be some pretty grave consequences,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), who wants to shave down the size of the package but otherwise agrees with McConnell.

“We have a number of our members who are not for Ukraine funding,” Thune added. “I think there’s a big majority that understands what’s at stake here.”

It’s all ammunition for the conservative rabble-rousers who sought to oust McConnell one year ago. Assessing the GOP leader’s passion for funding Ukraine’s defense, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said: “That doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“That’s what he believes. There are plenty of people, particularly in the House, that are not going to agree with him, and I don’t think it has a chance to pass in the House. There’s some real resistance here as well,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who meets regularly with House and Senate conservatives to coordinate strategy. “I just don’t think it’s gonna succeed.”

You won’t necessarily find Thune, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) or Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) going to McConnell’s lengths to push keeping $61 billion in Ukraine aid tied to Israel money and other priorities. All three potential McConnell heirs agree with continuing to fund Ukraine, though there’s no mystery over who’s leading the charge.

McConnell is emphasizing that the Senate GOP will make changes to the Biden administration’s request and toughen up the border component. But he’s sticking with his support for the core of the national security package, arguing the U.S. needs to take a holistic strategy toward Iran, China and Russia: “Our adversaries’ ambitions are not local,” he said Thursday. He declined an interview request for this story.

“These are the moments where statesmen step forward and lead a national conversation about what’s good for America,” argued Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

You might have to go back to McConnell’s 2016 Supreme Court blockade to find another instance when McConnell leapt to a stance so quickly. Unlike that move, which made the GOP leader the Democrats’ top foil for years, McConnell’s Ukraine position brings bipartisan praise. What’s more, McConnell’s long-running talk of the Ukraine funding as a jobs and readiness program is now resonating in the White House, which is shifting gears in its sales pitch to Congress.

In a brief interview, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said his work with McConnell is going “very good.” And he made clear he views the GOP leader as a critical partner in the battle against Ukraine skeptics.

“We have the same belief: We should get the big supplemental done,” Schumer said.

However, a partnership with Schumer does McConnell no good among Republicans, so he’s playing the politics carefully. During a party lunch on Wednesday, he empathized with senators who want to prioritize Israel but reminded them that Schumer’s in charge of the Senate, not him.

Instead, Republicans’ leverage is the filibuster: Schumer needs at least nine Republicans’ votes to pass any bill. And he’ll need many, many more to establish a strong negotiating position with the House.

“We can always refuse to ever get on a bill if [Schumer] doesn’t do it in a way that we approve. But people want to do the Israeli part. And I would say a majority — I can’t give you a number — wants to do the Ukraine part,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

Still, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said he believed Republicans could block a big national security package that includes Ukraine aid. Vance is one of the chief opponents of sending more cash to Kyiv, but said that even pro-Ukraine senators agree with him on strategy.

“There’s actually pretty wide consensus that we should separate Israel from the package,” Vance said. “Whether there are nine Republicans who are willing to break off and join the Democrats is an open question.”

Last fall’s leadership challenge by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to McConnell has accentuated divides within the party on key votes, complicating any hope of GOP unity. Throughout President Joe Biden’s first term, McConnell has at times voted for bipartisan efforts that the majority of GOP senators oppose, including gun safety and infrastructure laws, while rhetorically hammering Biden and seeking out other ways to keep the GOP united against the president politically.

Last month, McConnell advocated for Ukraine aid in a stopgap spending bill until it was clear most Republicans preferred dropping Ukraine money to avoid a shutdown. Some in the Senate GOP saw the moment as a perfect encapsulation of McConnell’s surprisingly stubborn position — which also demonstrated that his motivation is not political when it comes to Ukraine.

Some Republicans voiced support for Speaker Johnson moving quickly to jam the Senate, which they hope would undercut Schumer and McConnell’s initial strategic advantage. The House GOP is planning to vote on a standalone bill on Israel aid this week, according to a Republican who was on a conference-wide call Sunday night.

“He thinks it’s big enough and important enough that nine Republicans would vote with him on that. I’m not sure he gets that,” said the Senate Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “What happens if the House sends us an Israeli-aid only bill?”

Johnson is not as antagonistic toward Ukraine as other House members — a potential bright spot. Nonetheless, McConnell will need to exert every last bit of his influence to win the debate within his own party.

Allies say the GOP leader is ready to go all-out. Or, as Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) surmised: “People can say what they want about Mitch McConnell, but he’s certainly not a wimp.”

U.S. fighter jets on Saturday “scrambled” to intercept a civilian aircraft north of President Joe Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Del.

The civilian aircraft entered restricted airspace shortly after 2 p.m., according to Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the United States Secret Service. The aircraft landed safely at a nearby airport.

“As a precaution, assets were scrambled to intercept and the civilian aircraft safely landed at a nearby airport. There were no impacts to the protectee’s movements as a result of this incident and agents from the United States Secret Service are investigating in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration,” Guglielmi said.

The president is in Wilmington this weekend, and his movements weren’t affected. He attended church Saturday evening after the incident.

It increasingly looks like Israel has launched its much-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza — but officials won’t use the I-word to describe the campaign.

Speaking to his nation Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s fight against Hamas had entered “the second stage of the war” following a decision by the war cabinet to expand ground operations in Gaza. Standing alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and unity government partner Benny Gantz, Netanyahu acknowledged that what comes next will be a long, hard-fought battle.

“This is our second independence war. We’re going to save our country,” he said.

But Daniel Hagari, a military spokesperson, later framed the operation more modestly to reporters, saying the Israel Defense Forces would be “gradually increasing its ground activity in the Gaza Strip and the scale of its forces.”

The careful wording belies reports of heavy fighting by relatively small IDF units who have pushed into Gaza, supported by tanks, helicopters and air strikes. While intense, the runs are not the massive invasion the IDF has positioned itself to launch and indicate the war might be fought in smaller, targeted engagements rather than a massive push through the densely populated enclave.

Israeli officials over the last 24 hours signaled that the incursion into northern Gaza will be the first step in a multi-part operation to dismantle Hamas’ military capabilities. “The campaign will continue until further notice,” Gallant said.

The Biden administration has studiously kept quiet since Israeli forces entered and stayed in Gaza on Friday afternoon. During a news conference as the move was underway, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby repeatedly declined to confirm that a new operation was happening, pointing reporters to official Israeli statements. Moments before those remarks, IDF spokesperson Maj. Nir Dinar told POLITICO that “there are forces inside Gaza as we speak.”

Much hangs in the balance: global perceptions of Israel as it wages urban warfare that further imperils civilians; the resiliency of Hamas, which has had years to booby trap the enclave it rules; the effectiveness of President Joe Biden’s plan to back Israel publicly while pushing for a more limited military operation privately; and the fate of 230 hostages held in Gaza.

The U.S. has asked that Israel not launch an all-out invasion, fearing that it risks hostages’ lives and could lead to a spike in civilian casualties. The opening moments of the apparent campaign seem more limited — though Israeli officials insist that the war will eventually expand.

Israeli officials internally and with foreign partners discussed the possibility of delaying a large ground invasion to negotiate more hostage releases. But Gallant pushed that idea aside: “As we hit the enemy harder, there’s a better chance that the enemy will agree to solutions to return the loved ones.”

Little is known about the operation so far. An increased rate of Israeli airstrikes took telecommunications in Gaza offline, Palestinian companies said, leading to a blackout that has made it hard for residents to connect and for humanitarian organizations to coordinate aid deliveries. Most of what is known comes from official statements by the Israel Defense Forces, which deny they’re responsible for the blackout.

“Since early Friday evening, combined combat forces of armor, combat engineers and infantry have been operating on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in a statement Saturday morning. “As part of the operation, IDF soldiers identified terrorist cells attempting to launch anti-tank missiles and mortar shells and struck them. IDF soldiers also identified and destroyed a booby-trapped structure.”

The IDF also said it killed the head of Hamas’ Aerial Array, Asem Abu Rakaba, and Ratib Abu Tzahiban, commander of Hamas’ Naval Forces of the Gaza City Brigade. The military added that it had struck 150 tunnels and bunkers belonging to Hamas.

“What we are seeing now in Gaza is what is termed a ‘Reconnaissance Pull,’” said Mick Mulroy, formerly a top Pentagon official for the Middle East. “This tactic is applied to large unit formations in which small elements locate and rapidly exploit enemy weakness. Once the weakness, seams and gaps are discovered, they bring in the parts of the main body of the assault.”

“Over time, we could see the entire ground force in Gaza fully engaged in fighting Hamas by this effort,” Mulroy continued.

The former head of the U.S. Central Command, retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, said that purposeful movements into Gaza — as opposed to a full-scale invasion — also ensure the IDF doesn’t get stretched thin.

“This is an infantry fight,” he said. “A lot is going to be put on people on the ground, not just on the front lines, but behind the front lines, ensuring that you are secure [and] that Hamas is not going to pop up in your rear and attack your command posts, your medical aid stations and your all your logistics elements.”

Hamas is equipped with thousands of gallons of fuel that can be used for vehicles and rockets, ammunition, plenty of food and water and medicine — an indication of just how long it has had to prepare for a fight like this. Before this new phase, the Gaza health ministry claimed nearly 8,000 Palestinians had been killed during Israeli retributory strikes and the siege of Gaza, which followed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that saw 1,400 Israelis slain.

In his own remarks Saturday, Gallant couched the operation in stark terms, saying, “This will not be a short war. It is a long war that will require us to be strong, as individuals, as a society, as leaders. Above all, our security forces will be strong. This is a war on our home. This is a war we didn’t choose. It’s either us or them.”

The pieces are lining up for President Joe Biden to lay claim to a victory for his pro-union stance as the second of Detroit’s Big Three car companies reached a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers on Saturday, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Stellantis notched the deal with the union following a final stretch of intense negotiations, merely days after the UAW similarly came to preliminary terms with Ford on a new four-year contract. General Motors is now the lone Detroit automaker still at the bargaining table and faces growing pressure to come to terms as its competitors’ workers return to their jobs pending ratification of their agreements.

Details of the Stellantis-UAW deal weren’t immediately available, but they are expected to closely follow Ford’s, given the union’s past practice of using its first agreement as a pattern for the other companies. Ford agreed to a 25 percent wage increase for workers across the course of the contract, along with other salary concessions.

Though the UAW members’ acceptance of the Ford and Stellantis deals is not yet assured, they are crucial steps toward ending a six-week disruption to the automotive industry and its supply chains that has cost billions of dollars.

Biden is now closer than ever to turning the page on a major concern as he begins navigating shared governance with new House Speaker Mike Johnson, just ahead of another deadline to fund the government. It eases the danger that unrest in the sprawling auto industry will be an economic drag as he makes his pitch for reelection.

The UAW called its Ford members back to work immediately after its deal was announced, and Saturday’s breakthrough will likely end the strike against Stellantis plants — whose product lines include Jeep, Ram Trucks, Dodge and Chrysler — in short order as well.

The strike began Sept. 15, with Ford and GM offering 20 percent pay increases — already up from the raises of 9 and 10 percent, respectively, that they initially proposed. The UAW also showed flexibility, moving off its original demand of 40 percent raises to mirror CEO pay growth in the last four years.

Both Democrats and Republicans have tried to use the strike’s political symbolism to their advantage.

Biden joined workers on the picket line in September, the first time in living memory a sitting president has done so. That came a day before former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan to troll Biden and woo blue-collar votes.

But Biden has more tools at his disposal.

His administration has dispatched deputies to be a presence on the ground. White House senior adviser Gene Sperling and acting Secretary Julie Su traveled to Detroit multiple times to meet with the parties, aid in the bargaining process and move negotiations forward, a Labor Department spokesperson said Thursday.

At the same time, the UAW has kept some distance between itself and the administration so as to not mire the ongoing negotiations in partisan politics — and potentially alienate some of its membership

President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have agreed to meet on the sidelines of next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, according to a U.S. official familiar with the planning.

The two sides worked out an agreement in principle to hold a meeting during the summit as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Friday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official added that two sides have still not worked out details on the exact day of the meeting, venue and other logistics.

The White House said in a statement following Friday’s meetings that the two sides were “working toward” a Biden-Xi face-to-face on the sidelines of APEC, a forum of 21 Pacific countries.

The White House has been quietly urging lawmakers in both parties to sell the war efforts abroad as a potential economic boom at home.

Aides have been distributing talking points to Democrats and Republicans who have been supportive of continued efforts to fund Ukraine’s resistance to make the case that doing so is good for American jobs, according to five White House aides and lawmakers familiar with the effort and granted anonymity to speak freely.

The push, first previewed publicly in President Joe Biden’s Oval Office address last week, comes ahead of the election of a new House speaker, with the White House trying to invoke patriotism to help convince holdout Republicans not just to help Kyiv but to pass a major package that includes funds for Israel as well.

“As we replenish our stocks of weapons, we are partnering with the U.S. defense industry to increase our capacity and meet the needs of the U.S. and our allies both now and in the future,” according to a copy of the talking points obtained by POLITICO.

“This supplemental request invests over $50 billion in the American defense industrial base — ensuring our military continues to be the most ready, capable, and best equipped fighting force the world has ever seen — and expanding production lines, strengthening the American economy and creating new American jobs,” the document states.

The talking points are an implicit recognition that the administration has work to do in selling its $106 billion foreign aid supplemental request — and that talking about it squarely under the umbrella of national security interests hasn’t done the trick.

The White House’s pitch is an echo of one made by an influential figure on the other side of the aisle: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In a March 2022 Senate floor speech, McConnell (R-Ky.) warned that the defense industrial base had been caught “napping” as the Russian invasion entered its second month. In the early days, he repeatedly pushed Biden to use the Defense Production Act to ramp up weapons production.

And while some GOP support for Ukraine has eroded, the Senate minority leader took to the Sunday talk shows last weekend to push his Republicans against separating Israel’s cause from the war in Europe.

“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it’s wonderful that they’re defending themselves,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

White House aides said they have been in communication with McConnell throughout the war and that his recent remarks were warmly received in the West Wing. A McConnell aide did not comment on recent communication with the White House.

On top of communication with McConnell, Defense Department officials have also circulated to the Hill slides showing nearly $20 billion in investment in the industrial base via U.S. support for Ukraine. That includes nearly $3.1 billion in contracts targeted toward expanding the nation’s industrial base capacity, including increasing artillery production approximately six-fold over three years.

That ammunition is being provided to both Israel and Ukraine, officials said. Funding for the work flows through red states such as Texas, Arkansas and Alabama and electoral battlegrounds like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

The White House’s $106 billion supplemental request includes funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and border security. But the ambitious package remains stalled until a House Speaker is finally elected. In the wake of the Hamas terror attacks earlier this month, most lawmakers have backed funding Israel. But while there is largely bipartisan support for helping Ukraine as well, the number of GOP no votes has grown.

In urging help for Ukraine for the past 20 months, Biden’s arguments have largely centered around lofty ideas like defending democracies and making clear that the United States’ own national security would be threatened if Vladimir Putin were to be successful.

But White House aides have also argued that the war was hitting Americans in their wallets. They blamed the conflict for surging costs, particularly gas prices — though its “Putin’s price hike” moniker didn’t catch on — and warned that economic woes would grow if Ukraine fell.

Now, the tenor of the economic push has changed, with White House aides enlisting lawmakers to make a more positive case.

“Let me be clear about something,” Biden said during his Oval Office address. “We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles with new equipment.”

“Equipment that defends America and is made in America. Patriot missiles for air defense batteries, made in Arizona. Artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas. And so much more,” he said. “You know, just as in World War II, today patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.”

The change in sales pitch comes as polls show that Americans are growing more skeptical of the effort to help Ukraine — and continue to question Biden’s handling of the economy.

Some Republicans say they’ve been telling the Biden administration that their rhetoric around Ukraine has been subpar and that to gain House GOP support – and preserve the stronger support in the Senate – they have to change their message.

The administration has privately “realized that their messaging on Ukraine specifically has been a disaster… and that they needed to change,” according to a senior congressional Republican aide. “There has been a bit of effort to help the administration understand that their messaging is wholly inadequate, and they’re using phrases that Republicans don’t respond to and they’re not making convincing arguments.”

The aide pointed to Biden’s prior insistence that the U.S. would support Ukraine “as long as it takes” as open-ended and unwieldy. Biden in last week’s speech said the United States would help Ukraine “defend themselves” — a message more potent with the GOP and their voters.