Hello, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, your Tuesday foreign policy edition.

Before I get to today’s meat and potatoes—an interview with Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee—I wanted to bring your attention to two bits of news that, weirdly, connect to the D.C. restaurant scene.

The first is a massive, yearlong investigation that dropped on Sunday night. Journalists from 60 Minutes, Der Spiegel, and The Insider (which is where Christo Grozev landed from Bellingcat) collaborated to attempt to determine who, if anyone, was behind the so-called “anomalous health incidents,” better known as Havana Syndrome. It refers to the cluster of unusual neurological symptoms—including extreme headaches, vertigo, and vision and hearing loss—first reported by U.S. Embassy employees in Cuba in 2016. After years of conflicting reports (including by yours truly) on what is going on—and the consolidation of a camp that doubts anything at all is going on—Grozev & Co. pinpointed a specific unit of the G.R.U., or Russian military intelligence, that they say is responsible—and they brought receipts.

The notorious unit, 29155, has been behind some of the most egregious Russian attacks on foreign soil, including the Novichok poisoning of Russian double agent Sergey Skripal in the U.K. in 2018. Now, several victims of Havana Syndrome, who have documented health effects from being “hit,” have been able to positively identify members of the unit as having been present when they felt the paralyzing onset of symptoms. (One of the apparent attackers happens to be the 20-something son of the unit’s commander, General Andrei Averyanov, the deputy head of the G.R.U.)

But perhaps the weirdest subplot in this investigation is the story of Vitalii Kovalev, a chef who cooked at many well-known restaurants on the East Coast, including at D.C.’s recently shuttered Mari Vanna. (Reader, I’ve celebrated several birthdays there.) Turns out, Kovalev was a covert Russian operative connected to the A.H.I.s and, well, I won’t spoil this absolutely insane story for you. Read it for yourself, here.

Also, after a hellacious day of travel (London to Denver, with stops and delays, don’t ask), I woke up to the news of the Israeli drone strike that killed seven aid workers for chef José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen. The organization—which has done some pretty saintly work, including saving restaurants and feeding healthcare workers during the pandemic and feeding Ukrainian refugees—is based in Washington, D.C., where Andrés is a local fixture and has his restaurant empire. My Instagram feed is now full of friends in the D.C. restaurant world who know people killed in the strike. Some of these friends, who hadn’t really taken sides in the Israel-Hamas war, reached out to ask what in the hell happened, and why the U.S. would continue to send military aid to Israel “after this.”

Sadly, this is not the first time Israel has killed aid workers—in fact, nearly 200 have been killed since the war began—and the flow of U.S. arms and money hasn’t stopped. Why would it now? The U.S. still considers Israel an important and strategic ally, despite the mounting death toll of this war. Remember, the U.S. hasn’t cut off military aid to Egypt, despite it being a dictatorship that regularly imprisons journalists and opposition activists, or to Saudi Arabia, despite the horror its own (theocratic) dictatorship has wrought in Yemen—or the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Alas, human rights are only one consideration in determining U.S. foreign policy, and usually they are not the most important one.

That said, it’s hard not to be thoroughly shocked and repulsed by this latest strike on aid workers, despite the numbing quality of Israel’s war against Hamas and the fact that the horror it has unleashed in Gaza absolutely paralyzes the mind. (Which, I should point out, is part of Hamas’s strategy in this war.) W.C.K. has such broad, popular, untarnished appeal as a force for good in the world that the strike drew immediate condemnation, including from the U.S. government. “These people are heroes,” said Secretary of State Tony Blinken. “They run into the fire, not away from it. They show the best of what humanity really has to offer when the going gets tough. They have to be protected.” Blinken urged an immediate and thorough investigation.

Bibi Netanyahu, who referred to a “tragic case of our forces unintentionally harming innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” overall responded in a fashion that has become the norm not just for Israel but its most ardent supporters: War is hell, what can you do? “It happens in war; we are fully examining this,” Netanyahu said. “We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.” (It’s worth noting that we don’t normally get statements like this from Netanyahu. But in this case, mostly foreign nationals, including an American, were killed.)

The reporting that has already come out on this strike, especially in Haaretz, indicates that the convoy, despite being clearly marked and having agreed to the route with the Israeli military ahead of time, was hit three times—even after the aid workers notified Israeli forces that they had been mistakenly hit. But the missiles kept coming, even as the aid workers tried to move to a different car to evacuate the wounded. According to Haaretz, the I.D.F. was apparently targeting an armed militant it mistakenly thought was in the convoy.

This quote from the Haaretz report stuck out to me. “It’s frustrating,” one defense source told the paper. “We’re trying our hardest to accurately hit terrorists, and utilizing every thread of intelligence, and in the end the units in the field decide to launch attacks without any preparation, in cases that have nothing to do with protecting our forces.” It reminded me of complaints I heard from a senior Biden administration official a few weeks ago about how undisciplined and at cross-purposes the Israeli command structure has been, especially when it comes to letting in and distributing aid to Gaza. This horrific attack on the W.C.K. workers seems to illustrate with graphic brutality the cost in human lives of those failures. It also underscores, at least for me, how badly Israel is losing the P.R. war in this conflict. I mean, if you’ve lost José Andrés in D.C., the city responsible for sending you all your military aid…

Next up, my interview with Rep. McCaul. But first, here’s the latest from Abby Livingston on the Capitol Hill beat…

These funds, of course, come from myriad places, including longtime donors, business and interest group PACs, and small-dollar online contributions. But the most fascinating money transfers are made from members’ own campaign accounts. Yesterday, we looked at which members gave to the D.C.C.C. Now, a glance at the N.R.C.C.’s member contributions:

• Johnson’s largesse: Speaker Mike Johnson continues to be the House G.O.P.’s primary rainmaker, donating more than $1.5 million to the N.R.C.C. in February. Other big member-donors, who gave in the five and six-figure range, include Ways and Means members Claudia Tenney and Carol Miller, Appropriators Jake Ellzey and Ben Cline, along with Carlos Giménez, Harriet Hageman, Tom Kean Jr., and Brian Mast.
• Guthrie’s gambit: The most intriguing N.R.C.C. donation came from Kentucky Rep. Brett Guthrie, who donated $560,000 and is currently running to succeed Cathy McMorris Rodgers as the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Right now, Guthrie is the fourth-most-senior Republican on the committee, behind Bob Latta and Michael Burgess. But Burgess is retiring alongside C.M.R., and Guthrie’s half-million-plus contribution to the N.R.C.C. should help in a Latta-Guthrie showdown. Latta previously gave about $200,000 to the committee.
• Pete’s giving: Another interesting N.R.C.C. contribution came from Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts. It’s unusual for a senator to make any personal federal donation at all—members prefer to share the money they raise from other people—let alone give to the other chamber. But Ricketts is a prominent, longtime G.O.P. donor, and has previously donated to the Senate Republican campaign committee, state parties, federal G.O.P. candidates and cut previous checks to the N.R.C.C.

“Can you read Ukrainian?” McCaul asked as he walked behind his desk and brought out a souvenir the Ukrainians had given him on his last trip to the country. It was an ammo box with six shot glasses made from shell casings, each with a different message written on it. “I think one of them says ‘Eff you, Russia,” McCaul chuckled. But he totally lost it when I told him what it really said: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

McCaul was confident that the Ukraine supplemental passed by the Senate in February, which also included aid for Israel and Taiwan, would soon pass the House on a straight floor vote. For weeks, I had been hearing that same confidence echoed from sources in the White House and on the Hill, but as more and more time has passed—as Ukraine’s ammunition supplies continued to dwindle and Russia seized the initiative across most of the front—it had gotten harder to believe.

But Johnson—a rookie, as everyone (including McCaul) likes to point out—doesn’t quite know the ropes. He famously landed in the speaker’s chair last year after a strange confluence of events, and has since found himself in the crosshairs of pretty much everyone. There’s pressure from his right flank, which equates legislative compromise with treachery. There’s pressure from establishment Republicans, like McCaul and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and pressure from the White House and Democrats. And, perhaps most unbelievably for this newbie, pressure from world leaders, who are trying to impress upon him just how much his role matters, not just for the Republican Party or even for America, but for the entire free world.

That pressure has resulted in Johnson’s inching closer to letting the House vote on the Senate aid package, provided he can dress it up in a way that would make it more attractive to his fellow Republicans: namely, through the inclusion of McCaul’s REPO for Ukrainians Act, which would allow the U.S. to redirect seized Russian assets to Ukraine; reversing Biden’s moratorium on new LNG terminals; and, in line with Trump’s demands from the sidelines, making part of the Ukraine aid a loan, rather than a grant.

All of these things, it needs to be said, are cosmetic, palliative measures for the House Republican conference. The REPO Act, which would open a legal Pandora’s box that the Biden administration has been understandably reticent to do, would only give Ukraine access to about $5 billion (compared with the $60 billion in this aid package alone). The gas deal would be more about depriving Biden of one of his climate policy wins—even though U.S. LNG exports are set to double in the next three years.

As for making a portion of the aid a loan, it would apply only to the funds that go toward supporting the Ukrainian government’s budget—things like salaries for the soldiers and bureaucrats who keep the fight going and the state from collapsing. That is a tiny fraction of the $60 billion aid package. The vast majority is going to weapons and ultimately stays in the U.S. with U.S. manufacturers, creating U.S. jobs. Moreover, making the loan zero-interest and forgivable makes it palatable even to Ukrainians, who—as the Ukrainian ambassador told me the other day—understand that it’s a meaningless sweetener for Republicans, but if that’s what it takes to get the rest of the aid through, so be it.

Anyway, that’s the context for everything that’s happened over this congressional recess, and since McCaul and I chatted. I hope you enjoy our conversation. As always, it has been edited for length and clarity.

Rep. Michael McCaul: Oh, yes. I want to be on the right side of history. When we were in Poland right after the invasion, we saw a flood of refugees coming [from Ukraine]. It was just women, children—because the men stayed back—all the Poles were like, “This is like 1939.” The parallels are extraordinary. You can change the names, but, you know, it reminds them of Hitler in Europe. And then you’ve got this threat from China to the Pacific, and now you have the Middle East.

Your absence was definitely felt at Munich this year and some of your colleagues in the CODEL were saying, “He can’t come, he has a primary fight.” Your challenger, Jared Lovelace, whom you bested in the end, talked in his campaign about foreign entanglements and America First. Does that resonate in your district?

Yeah, some. I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base. And I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest. By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the Ayatollah. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it. And unlike 1939, we want to provide deterrence so that we don’t have to send anyone over, and we don’t want Article V invoked. Because the next thing the Russians will do is [attack] Moldova, Georgia, and then part of the Baltics. Or at least provoke a lot. So I just think it’s preventative.

This war is so personal for me, and probably because of that, I just have a really hard time understanding why Ukraine is such an unpopular issue on the right. Do you understand it?

Yeah, I don’t understand it! I grew up with this construct of Ronald Reagan, and I tell my constituents: “What would Reagan do?” Well, he believed in leading the free world. He believed in a strong NATO. He didn’t attack NATO. You know, the fact that Finland and Sweden are now part of NATO is phenomenal. And I visited both those countries; they have a lot to offer. But I don’t know if it’s some of that impeachment stuff that came out of Ukraine, maybe that’s part of it. Or they just think it’s corrupt and they think we’re throwing money in a black hole.

And then there is this kind of mythology—Trump has this affinity for strongmen. Like Putin, like Chairman Xi—he has this respect—or Orban, the dictator from Hungary…

Or Kim Jong Un…

Or Kim Jong Un, “Little Rocket Man.” You know, when Trump was president, I signed off on $300 million in lethal assistance to Ukraine. And then the whole impeachment thing happened, and I don’t know if that soured [Trump on Ukraine].

But to me it’s like, do you support freedom and democracy over an oppressive dictatorship and brutal violence? I mean, I went to Bucha and I saw the graves, and the maternity hospital being bombed and a pregnant woman who died with her baby. The abduction of the children and their indoctrination. Some really bad things are happening over there.

There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it—and it’s almost identical [to what they’re saying on Russian state television]—on our airwaves. They have the same problem in Europe. I mean, Russia’s been very effective at that. These people that read various conspiracy theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda. And I have to explain to them, “You’re actually a victim of Russian propaganda, and what you’re saying, you’re spreading Russian [propaganda].” [And they respond,] “Oh, no I’m not.”

Do you have any examples of Republicans who parrot Russian propaganda?

I mean, it’s pretty obvious.

[McCaul laughed, and his staff quickly cut in to say that we could discuss this off the record.]

Does it resonate when you ask people in your district, “Do you support freedom and democracy?”

Yeah, I wonder about that, because it was always freedom, democracy, human rights. And that’s what Reagan always talked about. I’m more of a Reagan Republican. I knew the Bushes really well. There’s a new wing of isolationism, and that takes you back again to the 1930s. That was not helpful. Now, I understood it—because World War I was very bloody, and Americans were like, “We don’t want to go over to save Europe again.” But had we been involved earlier and provided that deterrence, we could have saved a lot of blood and treasure.

I just see so many parallels between then and what’s happening right now. And if we fail in this aid package and Putin does take Ukraine—and it won’t take him very long—then where will the United States be? Are we going to be stronger or weaker? I think we’re projecting weakness already. I think that’s why he invaded Ukraine when he did, after the fall of Afghanistan.

I mean, that was a real trigger. There was Nord Stream II, which I sanctioned. The president waived the sanctions. That’s seen as weakness by Putin, that Europe’s so dependent on Russian energy. And then the way Afghanistan went down was so humiliating. And then we saw the satellite imagery of the Russian Federation, literally like a month or two after that, coming down. And we were like, “Oh my God, they’re actually going to do this!”

We have to. Again, it’s about being on the right side of history. There are enough people on both sides of the aisle that support this. It’s not just Ukraine. It’s Israel, Ukraine, and it’s the Indo-Pacific. But we’re putting it together.

Do you think Speaker Johnson will just allow a straight vote?

He’s committed to doing that.

So no discharge petition? None of that stuff?

What we have discussed is a House version with our imprimatur on it that would include things like my REPO Act, which would allow us to get access to Russian sovereign assets, or, you know, a loan program for direct government assistance and that would be zero interest [and] waivable.

The biggest failure of this administration, in my view, has been the timid response in terms of weapons. So I sign off on all foreign military weapons sales. And, you know, first it was Stingers. [And the administration said,] “Oh, that’s going to be too provocative.” And then it was HIMARS, tanks, F-16s. And the latest is ATACMS. The longer-range artillery would allow Ukraine—and they tell me this like, “We don’t have air cover. With the long-range ATACMS, we could take out the bridge between Russia and Crimea, cut their supply lines.” It would be a huge moral victory. But they just won’t give them to them.

That’s been very frustrating. So when you see a war that’s being mismanaged, it’s hard to sell that to my colleagues. Like, “Oh, yeah, they’re not doing a good job managing this, but I want you to invest more in them.”

We can write it in the bill, just keep putting pressure on them. Blinken seems very—I was with him right after the invasion—he was all in for the MIGs going in. It’s not him. In my judgment, it’s Jake Sullivan and the White House. It’s a very timid response. I like the Colin Powell Doctrine. You’re all in or you’re all out. Don’t go halfway. You know, we’re giving Putin exactly what he wants. That’s a stalemate. A war of attrition. And he has more bodies to throw in.

A lot of people have drawn this distinction between Tony and Jake. What do you think is Jake’s logic in this?

Jake is—he’s overly cautious. He’s very timid. And he’s bought into this notion that, well, if we give them too much, then Russia’s going to use a tactical nuke on us. Well, most intelligence I’ve seen is they’re not going to do that. Because that would be a game-changer for everybody.

Do you think the Russians care? Do you think they give a shit?

Oh, I think their concern would be that you would draw the NATO alliance in. But I just think he’s been overly timid, overly cautious, overly careful. And everything’s too provocative. But the crazy thing is, all the stuff he worried about, has now been agreed to, we’re putting it in there. It’s just that it’s too little, too late.

Do you think Jake is more cautious than the president?

I think it’s both of them. I think they are kind of like-minded.

Most of the Ukraine aid, as you know well, is going right back into America, American manufacturers, American jobs. Does that argument resonate at all with the Republican base?

They don’t understand it. I talk about it a lot, that 80 percent is going into our defense industrial base, which we need to modernize.

Mostly in red states.

Yep. We have a map that we show to people. It’s a map of all the states where money goes, the jobs. Early on, I said, why don’t we just make that a DoD weapons account? But Jake Sullivan thought that was maybe too gimmicky. So it’s [money for] Ukraine, but actually most of it’s going to invest and modernize our stockpile. We’re dumping the old stuff in Ukraine.

When it comes to people in your district or in the Republican base, why does that argument not resonate? Is it just that it’s too complicated an explanation, or is it that people feel we shouldn’t be spending so much money anyway, or both?

There’s this new attitude that defense contractors are evil and McCaul, you’re just a warmonger. But again, I go back to Chamberlain and Hitler. The best way to prevent war is to project strength and deterrence. And if you don’t do that, you’re gonna invite aggression and more conflict.

Julia