Kateryna Lisunova
‼️“Foreign leaders don’t usually wade into domestic politics to make their case for or against a bill. It usually backfires. But Zelensky leaned into it — specifically the tariff concerns that Dems have. Senators & aides I’ve spoken with said Zelensky’s pitch flipped many more Dem skeptics than they thought was possible. Of the 20 or so Dems who were either skeptical or a hard no, 9 ended up voting to advance the bill after the Zelensky meeting”
Andrew Desiderio
Let’s take a step back and recognize how out-of-the-ordinary the last few hours were in the Senate, culminating in an 86-12 vote to advance the Russia sanctions bill. Foreign leaders don’t usually wade into domestic politics to make their case for or against a bill. It usually backfires. But Zelensky leaned into it — specifically the tariff concerns that Dems have. I’m told that, heading into the vote & the Zelensky meeting, the lead Dem sponsors believed based on the whip count on their side that the high water mark was in the mid 70s, with the built-in assumption that just 1 or 2 R’s would be against. Senators & aides I’ve spoken with said Zelensky’s pitch flipped many more Dem skeptics than they thought was possible. Of the 20 or so Dems who were either skeptical or a hard no, 9 ended up voting to advance the bill after the Zelensky meeting.