How the House met its 'Churchill or Chamberlain moment'

A week ago, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote a letter to colleagues in which he declared that the House was facing “a Churchill or Chamberlain moment” as far as providing desperately needed military aid to Ukraine.

“The time has come for the House of Representatives to act, and act decisively in America’s national security interests,” Jeffries, flanked by his House Democratic leadership team, told reporters on Wednesday. “This is a Churchill or Chamberlain moment. We can either confront Russian aggression in defense of democracy, or we can allow pro-Putin MAGA Republicans to appease. As events have shown in modern world history, appeasement of aggression gets you nowhere. ”

Jeffries’ remarks proved to be a pivotal moment in pressuring House Speaker Mike Johnson to finally bring the $61 billion Ukraine aid package to a floor vote on Saturday after months of delay due in no small part to Trump’s opposition to providing further aid. The House passed the bill by an overwhelming 311-112 margin. But still, 112 Republicans opposed the legislation, with only 101 in support.

And as always, it’s about learning what we can from history and not repeating our mistakes.

RELATED STORY: Biden wins on Ukraine as House GOP faces big decision about its future

Jeffries was referring to British prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. It’s clear that President Joe Biden is filling the role of Churchill in standing up to the anti-democratic authoritarian threat posed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Trump, however, has shown a willingness to appease Putin by indicating support for a peace plan that would leave Russia in control of a chunk of occupied Ukrainian territory. But it would be unfair to Chamberlain to compare him with Trump. Chamberlain’s appeasement policy was wrong, but he never wanted to be a dictator as Trump does.

And Jeffries added that we cannot repeat the “past mistakes” that precipitated World War II. He was referring to the September 1938 appeasement pact signed by Chamberlain and Hitler in Munich that handed over part of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in a failed attempt to avert a war.

Upon returning to Britain, Chamberlain stood outside 10 Downing Street and declared, “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time. … Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."

He made these remarks upon returning to Britain from Munich.

On Sept. 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland to launch World War II. At the time, the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Germany that enabled Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to invade eastern Poland and then annex the three Baltic states. Many fear that history could repeat itself in the region if Putin wins in Ukraine.

Churchill, who had warned about the dangers posed by appeasing Nazi Germany, replaced Chamberlain as prime minister in May 1940 in Britain’s darkest hour when several hundred thousand British and French troops had their backs to the sea in the French port of Dunkirk.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is predicting quick passage when the Senates takes up the $95 billion aid package Tuesday, which also includes $26 billion for Israel and to provide humanitarian relief for Gaza residents and $8 billion for helping Taiwan and other U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific.

The goal is to get the package to Biden’s desk as quickly as possible so U.S. arms and ammo can start flowing in to help beleaguered Ukrainian forces stave off an expected Russian summer offensive.

On the other side of the aisle, Michael McCaul of Texas, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a traditional Reagan Republican who supported sending more arms to Ukraine, echoed Jeffries remarks when he told reporters last Tuesday, “The world is on fire, and history will judge us by our actions. Were you Chamberlain, or were you Churchill?”

McCaul had earlier warned that “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” And Mike Turner of Ohio, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said, “We see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.”

And Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who has a Ph.D. in British history, said the current situation in Ukraine does remind him of the 1930s. ”We have a great European power re-litigating borders by the force of arms, something we haven’t seen really in decades. And we’ve got a great Asian power watching and calculating and planning on the basis of that,” Cole said. He was referring to Japan in the 1930s and China today.

American historian Phillips P. O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, wrote in his Substack column that he had been in touch privately with Republican House members and the Churchill-Chamberlain analogies emboldened Reagan Republicans to stand up to the MAGA extremists. He posted this on X, formerly known as Twitter:

O’Brien said Johnson “was spooked by the intelligence reports about what the loss of U.S. aid was doing to Ukrainian resistance. On Thursday, CIA Director William J. Burns, speaking at an event at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, warned that without U.S. military aid “there is a very real risk that the Ukrainians could lose on the battlefield by the end of 2024, or at least put Putin in a position where he could essentially dictate the terms of a political settlement.”  

O’Brien said Johnson was also becoming aware that if he did not act, a large number of pro-Ukrainian Republicans were ready to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on Ukraine aid and that abandoning Ukraine would be “politically damaging” to Republicans’ election chances in 2024.

The Washington Post reported that Johnson was given polling data from the American Action Network, the policy arm of a Republican-affiliated super PAC, that found a large majority of voters in battleground districts favor aid to Ukraine.  

Trump, preoccupied with his criminal trial in New York, gave Johnson some wiggle room when the two met at Mar-a-Lago on April 12. Trump refused to back Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s threat to oust Johnson if the Ukraine aid package passed, declaring that the speaker is doing “a very good job.”

And Trump toned down his resistance to the Ukraine aid package in a comment on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.

“Why can’t Europe equalize or match the money put in by the United States of America in order to help a Country in desperate need? As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!” Trump wrote.

Of course, such comments mean little because Trump has indicated that if elected he would end the war in Ukraine by cutting off further aid to the country and forcing Kyiv to make territorial concessions.

ABC News reported that Johnson met with House colleagues late into the night last week at the speaker’s office, and they prayed on what decision he should take. “And then he told me the next day: I want to be on the right side of history,” McCaul said.

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