Opening Conversation with Congressional Members

This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on September 21, 2023. Watch the full video here.

Daniel F. Runde: OK. We’re going to go ahead and get started. I’m going to welcome everybody quickly because I want to respect everybody’s time.

I’m Dan Runde. I’m a senior vice president here at CSIS. I also hold the William Schreyer Chair on Global Analysis. We’re here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thank you all for joining us for our conference on “Doing Business in Ukraine: The Role of the Private Sector in Ukraine’s Economic Transformation.”

I just want to quickly thank our guests first, Congressman Quigley and Congressman Hill. I know you’re extremely busy people who are short on time so we’ll be respectful of that, and I’ll come back later to make some more formal remarks.

My really good friend and colleague, Elizabeth Hoffman, the director of congressional and government affairs and a fellow here at CSIS, will introduce our esteemed speakers and moderate the discussion. So thank you all and let’s get started.

Elizabeth Hoffman: Thank you so much, Dan, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here for this really important conference.

I’m really pleased to be here today with two members of Congress, Congressman French Hill representing – a Republican representing the Second District of Arkansas. He’s the vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as well as the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In addition to his role in Congress, prior – after the fall of the Berlin war [sic; Wall], Congressman Hill led the design of U.S. technical assistance to the emerging economies of Eastern and Central Europe in the areas of banking and security so very appropriate for him to be here with us today.

And then also really pleased to have Congressman Mike Quigley, a Democrat representing Illinois Fifth District, and he currently serves on the very important House Appropriations Committee, as ranking member on the Subcommittee for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and until this past – until this Congress he was a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence as well.

And he is a co-chair of the Ukraine Caucus. Many caucuses in Congress are not very active and the Ukraine Caucus is maybe the most active caucus in Congress and has taken on a new kind of central role of importance following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and he has been a tireless advocate for the Ukrainian cause.

So really, really pleased to have both of these gentlemen here today, especially in what is shaping up to be a crazy couple weeks in Congress. So thank you so much for taking the time.

I want to kick off with kind of a broad question to let you all offer some reflections on where we’re at right now. You know, a year and a half into the war public support in the United States for continued assistance to Ukraine is split at best with some polls showing a majority of Americans opposed to continued financial support for the war in Ukraine.

Can you both share your perspective on why you think – what is your response to that? Why do you tell people it is so important for the United States to continue to support Ukraine?

Congressman Hill?

Representative French Hill: I think it’s important because it sets a tremendous poor example in the world that we keep letting countries invade other sovereign countries and pay no price for that and simply accept it and move on to the next crisis.

It has huge geopolitical ramifications in the sense that with the, I think, poor decisions made by the Obama administration leading up to both the Syria crisis and the Ukrainian crisis in Donbas, you’re – you know, you’re green lighting bad actions like 15,000 people in Donbas and Crimea taken without firing a shot.

I don’t singlehandedly blame the United States policy at the time for that but it sets the stage where you’re going to get away with whatever you want to. And the same in Syria when we drew, quote, “a red line” there and then failed to in any way uphold it, and those things both have something in common, which is some of the worst actors on the planet – Iran, Russia, working in cahoots with – together to subjugate people in Syria and now in Ukraine.

So why do Americans – you know, what’s going on? Well, they don’t know, I think, clearly the stakes, that this – after the pullout – precipitous pullout inappropriately and, again, in my view, of Afghanistan, these failed decisions leading up to invasion of Ukraine and you’re green lighting other bad actors. Like, would this send a signal to China to move precipitously across the Taiwan Strait? So there’s a geopolitical issue there, one.

Secondly, for the money that’s been spent in Europe and in the United States over the past few months following the invasion you’ve essentially seen Russia go from the world’s second largest military and most respected military in the world second to the United States to not even the second-best military in Ukraine. (Laughter.)

And so there’s a tremendous 80-year program to, you know, I think counter Russia’s aggression around the world since World War II, and for a modest investment in Europe and the United States to back the Ukrainians to eject Putin from that seems like a bargain to me.

But that’s not seeping into political views in Europe or here in the United States. I just came back from visits in Europe. They have some of the similar challenges. I was in Italy and in the United Kingdom visiting and the word in Rome was, you know, fatigue is the death of Ukraine.

So we need to be making the case that it’s important – and that’s why Mike and I are proud to be here today – why it’s important geopolitically to counter bad actors and to support the outrage that a P-5 member of the United Nations Security Council can just invade a country – a neighboring country, sovereign country – and we don’t even – we still don’t get a unanimous vote in the United Nations.

Ms. Hoffman: Congressman Quigley?

Representative Mike Quigley: I was just in Germany visiting our troops training the Ukrainian troops on our new tanks and I saw that spirit there that reinforces and reinvigorates me when I think about this effort.

I was in Kyiv a year ago in July and we went up to Bucha, and I was at the church and I was standing on a plot of ground and I asked the priest – I said, where’s the mass grave, and he said, you’re standing on it.

I go back to my childhood and watching the “World at War” documentary and my first understanding as a kid of the Holocaust and all the other costs of the Second World War and I was – it just hit me. Back then we were saying never again.

Well, the magnitude of it isn’t the same in Kyiv, but had we not engaged and involved we would be talking similar proportional numbers, right, not just of rape, torture, murder of innocent civilians but stealing babies, changing who they are and taking them back into Russia.

It’s just one other reason in addition to what my friend French has talked about, and I think we have to remind ourselves that it’s not just Beijing thinking about crossing the Strait. It’s what Putin would have done, right, besides bringing Belarus in and then, like, sort of a united federation of Moldova, looking at the Baltics, and other areas of Europe. It clearly would have been the target there and the ramifications of this rolling on.

I get fatigue. But fatigue is what Putin is counting on, right? And if you don’t care about the people you put on the front lines – I believe the Russian army is probably as large as it was when the war started. Mind you, conscripts, prisoners and so forth, untrained. But they will be.

I think we have to address expectations as well. So when we talk about those polling numbers not being – you know, you don’t take a poll each day to say, well, that’s what I’m going to do today. There’s right and wrong, and you lead and you educate and you help people appreciate and understand what those issues are and why it matters in their interests.

If you can’t appeal to their heart you should appeal to their brain. This matters to you. It is – Ukraine’s fight is the reason we formed the United Nations. Ukraine’s fight is the reason we formed NATO and EU and all these others, and if we’re not willing to go to the mat then, you know, we have to question who we are.

So, you know, I guess the final thing I add is this is an unholy alliance now that should reinforce why this matters when you see North Korea meeting with Russia, China’s help, Iran’s help. This is a ballgame and it’s our generation’s turn to step up.

Ms. Hoffman: Thank you.

So I’m going to ask the question that everybody I’m sure is eager to hear the answer to in this particular moment. You know, in August just weeks ago the Biden administration sent a request to Congress for $24 billion in supplemental assistance to Ukraine. However, right now it seems we may be on the precipice of a U.S. government shutdown and the appropriations process is very much – and the way forward is very much in question. Given this broader picture, what is the prospect for our supplemental assistance to Ukraine in the next month or so?

Rep. Hill: I think this is a really important point and it also illustrates about this opportunity to educate the American people and educate our colleagues and bring some clarity to this, and I won’t say that the Biden administration has done, you know, as effective a job as I would have liked.

I mean, I worked for President Bush 41, as noted, during the Gulf War and, you know, I remember fondly Nick Brady and Jim Baker carrying the message globally that Saddam Hussein’s illegal invasion in Kuwait disrupted the Persian Gulf, which disrupts oil prices, which disrupts the entire global economy and we ought to have every nation in the world come to the table immediately and offer financial and military assistance to take care of that.

And, in fact, at the end of the day the 600,000 Americans that deployed to Saudi Arabia at that time for the very brief ejection of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait – the out of pocket cost of that war were paid by, you know, the whole globe. The whole globe. And here I make the same case that Putin’s illegal invasion into Ukraine starting in 2014, not 2024, has disrupted food, fuel markets around the world and we ought to have the exact same response from the globe.

And this is a key point as it relates to Congress. Congress – many in Congress who are reflecting their constituents with saying American taxpayers appear to me – me, the constituent out in Iowa somewhere – are paying the whole cost of trying to eject Putin from Ukraine.

Why do they think that? Well, because I don’t believe we are communicating very effectively what people have done and have committed to do, and it is a big difference on paid in versus promised.

And so to get – lower that number of votes from the 89 or so that voted to cut off funding in the National Defense Authorization debate we had in late July – we had overwhelming support for Ukraine in the National Defense Authorization on both sides of the aisle but we had about 89 who voted no on various amendments.

In my view, how do you get that number down? One, demonstrate how the world is also contributing money to eject Putin from this illegal invasion and show it on a piece of paper.

Two, what’s the plan to win here? That’s another question we get from constituents because the administration – and you can’t fully blame the administration. It’s coordinated with Europe. But NATO, 31 allies, and the United States has foot drug sending the equipment the Ukrainians need to win and because of the foot dragging you now have a trench line that exceeds the Maginot Line and looks like it’s World War I in France and it’s hurt the ability for the Ukrainians to move forward. That’s the second point.

So money – who’s contributing, how much. Secondly, what is the plan to exit. So I think if we answered those questions persuasively with both European contributors to that voice and American leadership both on the Hill and in the executive branch, we’ll lower that number. Oh, I see what you’re trying to do. I see now that the Europeans have contributed mightily.

I don’t see that. It takes salesmanship to do it. I hearken back to Nick Brady and Jim Baker’s approach to ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait not to give you a history lesson but to tell you that we led from the front and showed what we were – what the plan was, what the expectations were, and who was going to pay for it, and I think that would help us on Capitol Hill.

Ms. Hoffman: Congressman Quigley?

Rep. Quigley: When the war started, we were certain this would be a three- or four-day war, right? So we began with the wrong sense of how to fund this war and armament. This was going to be a war of insurgency so how do you do that? And anything beyond that was viewed as, initially, always escalatory, right?

So I was speaking publicly about this that we are always starting with no. Do we go to heavy armor, right? Do we go to tanks? Do we go to – and now, you know, eventually we’re getting there.

So, you know, I understand the diplomacy that the Biden administration had to work with to keep our allies unified. But I think that’s a key part of how this took this time, and I remember hearing, well, it takes – it will take the Ukrainians a long time to learn how to use this weaponry.

A response I heard in meeting with the Ukrainians is you’d be surprised how quickly you learn if your life is on the line, and they have not just learned quickly – they have learned to adapt our weaponry in ways that we didn’t necessarily foresee going into this.

I do want to talk a little bit about expectations, and we didn’t land on the beaches of France, sweep through the hedgerows, France, and across the Rhine into Berlin overnight. There were disputes within the allies. There were things that held us back. There were tactical mistakes that were made. I think we need to educate the American public about what those expectations are and why that matters.

Let me say a little bit about governance. If I only had to work with my fellow appropriators on the Republican side this would be a done deal. These would be folks that I would disagree with on a lot of key issues but people who are responsible enough to appreciate the fact that this matters.

I spoke at the City Club in Chicago about two months ago and I said, what do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about climate change? Do you want to talk about public safety? Do you want to talk about the economy? Give me your list.

None of that matters unless we can govern, unless we get to the basics that our predecessors understood for different reasons that you don’t shut the government down. You reach an – now, in fairness, we did this, right? We passed the debt ceiling bill with numbers on a bicameral, bipartisan basis. So we’re going to hear a lot about what the costs are to a government shutdown as we seemingly head in that direction.

I would say that the real cost of a government shutdown is for the same reasons they are watching how strong we are on Ukraine the rest of the world is watching us to see if we can govern.

When President Biden spoke to my caucus the first time, he said that what he hears from the leaders in other dictatorial regimes is we don’t think democracy works anymore – that you can’t govern. We can’t give them further evidence that that may be true because there’s a lot at stake, not the least of which is Ukraine.

Ms. Hoffman: Thank you.

So on that expectation front that you just mentioned, you know, the Biden administration is taking the approach of sending smaller supplemental packages to the Hill for assistance and I think part of that originally was the expectation that this war would be over in several days, and has said that they’re avoiding sending larger packages to the Hill because they don’t want to create the appearance that this is a long war.

However, following the G-7 meeting recently, you know, senior officials have conceded this is probably at least another five or six years if not longer. As mentioned before, support among American public is declining, and going into a presidential election year I imagine it’s difficult for members of Congress to be continued to ask to take votes on Ukraine assistance over and over and over.

Do you think that the Biden administration should rethink? I mean, this $24 billion that I mentioned before is intended to last the next three or four months for Ukraine and then presumably the administration will have to come back with yet another request.

Do you think that they need to rethink their approach and how they are requesting Congress appropriate aid?

Rep. Hill: Speaking for myself, not speaking for the House Republican Conference, I would say the general answer to that question is yes and I cite that because of the points I made before.

The humanitarian assistance – let’s see what that is and how much everyone’s contributing. The military assistance is disproportionately a benefit of the United States, United Kingdom, and some particular countries.

But then there’s a lot of that money that goes to replenishing American stocks, which is spent here in the U.S. and is actually upgrading those stocks as opposed to long shelf life items that maybe were sent in advance – that might be something Mike could comment on – and let’s compare that because, again, I think that would eliminate it, and heretofore we’ve spent, you know, and for the United States appropriated not including this supplemental something in the hundred billion dollar range, which includes that replenishment. It doesn’t all go to Ukraine. Let’s be clear about that.

But, again, we borrow almost that much a week. So we have contributed a week’s worth of borrowing in the United States, if you want to think about it that way, to completely eliminate the, you know, ground forces of the Russian military.

The Europeans have promised a number in that range but not delivered it, and when you – you want to count that. So I think this gets into my – but what I hear from my constituents and from colleagues: What’s the plan? This speaks to your – exactly to your question. You know, lay out what your expectations for the year are about America’s role in funding Ukraine’s daily budget, which is about 7 billion euros a month – military support, humanitarian support – versus what Europe and other nations are doing and what about these other nations that are kind of on the sidelines that could play a major role either in armaments or, certainly, the humanitarian or the monthly budget number and keep asking for their support.

Only, in my view – and I thank the Japanese governor – government. I went to Mr. Kishida personally to say thank you when they – when it has chair of the G-7 this year. The government of Japan pledged $5.5 billion to support. That – we need a lot more of that and I think that the combination of a plan – a military plan and a financial plan and expectation management is a way to get more people to support the process, not less.

Rep. Quigley: I didn’t agree with everything the Biden administration has done as it leads up to that and I think it was, first, an assessment of what the situation was at the beginning. But I do want to say this.

Outside of Ukraine the person most responsible for the success so far beyond what the expectations were is President Biden unifying and waking up a slumbering West and NATO. So it’s hard for us to understand fully what was taking place behind the scenes and what the West would tolerate and how we move forward.

On the expenditures I think there’s a balance between every three or four months having to come back to a point where if you gave them a much bigger number, theoretically, it’ll last for a year – would they pass it, would they tolerate that – and assuming that the House would do anything is probably a fool’s game.

I think – before we go, I think it’s important to stress that the wakeup call here for the West is the only silver lining in this conflict. It pulled the curtain back as to what was really there for our allies, how ready were they, and reinforcing what every president has said, that most NATO members weren’t spending enough and doing enough.

It also – when I was in Poland twice during this conflict and I met with leaders of the 82nd and 101st Airborne I said, what are we learning, and they’re, like, it’s – you know, everything else is maneuvers and now you’re in a conflict. How does our weaponry work? What are the strategies and tactics that work?

So it’s been helpful to an extraordinary extent. But I’ve also visited the tank plant in Ohio and the artillery manufacturing plant in Iowa and planning other visits. It’s a wakeup call to all of us about what is needed to truly defend ourselves and our allies in a modern world.

So the Ukrainians are firing artillery shells in three or four days what we are producing in a month. Now, I know there’s a plan to increase that by 500 percent but it’s going to take some time to do that.

So, of course, we’re not always going to agree with everything our friends do in the administration but I give them a ton of credit on this. But we’ve got to take these lessons and move forward and, again, educate the public and our colleagues as to what this really means.

Ms. Hoffman: So we talk a lot about U.S. assistance to Ukraine, and a joint assessment conducted by the government of Ukraine, the European Commission, and the World Bank estimates the current cost of recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine about 350 billion (dollars). However, I’ve heard much higher numbers than that.

The West currently has about 200 billion (dollars) in frozen Russian assets, and a recent poll conducted by the International Republican Institute in Ukraine shows about 89 percent of Ukrainians support using frozen Russian assets to help pay for reconstruction and legislation has been introduced in Congress to do just that.

However, there are, I think, legal and political obstacles to making that a reality. Could you talk a little bit about what those obstacles are and if you see a prospect for this passing?

Rep. Hill: Well, Mike and I both support using frozen Russian assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine and I don’t think saying that, you know, even has a lot of controversy around it.

But you’ve seen in the NDAA – the National Defense Authorization bill – last year we had a proposal that was accepted that we were going to somehow freeze and convert Russian oligarch assets from Belarus territory and Russian territory-connected people, some of the people that have been sanctioned by the European Union and the United States.

I view that as interesting but, generally, you know, a fool’s errand because if you’re a Russian oligarch and have money tucked away a lot of places you’ve got a lot of lawyers and a lot of ability to fight that jurisdictionally all around the world and in some countries the cost of holding those Russian oligarch assets are borne by the country and there’s not, like, using the Russian oligarchs’ cash held in suspension to fund the porting of a yacht somewhere.

So, number one, I think the oligarch question is interesting. We should, of course, do that where appropriate. But I think you’re going to be tied up in court and you have a lot of expenses.

So I support and have a more directed approach to tackling the issue of sovereign Russian assets and in my view that is not what you read about in the Financial Times, that it’s just the approximately 300 billion (dollars) that’s connected to the central bank that is in – mostly in Europe. Some modest amounts here but, you know, mostly in Europe.

In my vision, 70 percent of the Russian state is state controlled. Probably 25 (percent) or 30 percent of the corporate sector of Russia is actually – has shareholding by the Russian Federation, by the state, and I would argue – you look at Gazprom, for example, the big energy company, it’s completely state owned and, by God, if they have a pipeline or a pump facility or a rig or a ship or a building that’s in another country’s jurisdiction and that company is controlled by the Russian Federation then it’s fair game to be taken legally for this discussion and I think it increases the West leverage.

So my bill that I’ve introduced, the Ukraine Reconstruction Act, directs the Treasury secretary, working with the secretary of state, to do exactly that, pass laws in the United States to accumulate those assets that we have control over and put them in a(n) international fund for Ukraine reconstruction.

And then what I’m doing is going to every country – I was in Rome, I was in Ankara, I was in London in the last few weeks – saying, and you need to pass similar enabling legislation in your country for the same purpose, both – any banking assets – of course, that’s already well known – but these Russian Federation-controlled corporate assets so that we can add that to the pot.

The legal issues are, in my view, generally transparently cleared up because the U.N. and the United States and nations have used this same kind of example in Kuwait – my previous example – in Afghanistan, in Iraq, that had U.N. and international legal blessing.

So I think that can be done. But to make it right each country needs to enact this enabling legislation to make it productive and that’s the mission I’m on. So maybe turn to Mike for his views.

Rep. Quigley: Sure. Look, in the interest of time I want to associate myself with those remarks but add two things. Later today you’re going to meet our good friend, Penny Pritzker, who’s been appointed to lead that effort. So I’ll begin by saying that was a great choice and we look forward to working with her on that.

And I think the last thing I would add is we talked about educating the American people. We have to remind them why – when the war – when the conflict ends some of the work just begins and why that is so important – again, the lessons from the Second World War and the turmoil and destruction and the recovery there that was so vital to not having won the war and then lose the peace.

So the critical work that history taught us that the U.S. and others did but primarily the U.S. after the Second World War was so essential and why I think we need to – well, there’s an amnesia on so many other things. We need to remind them and the American people why that mattered and, again, our colleagues.

Rep. Hill: Let me touch on one other point. You mentioned the number that’s floating around. What did you say, 349 billion (dollars)?

Ms. Hoffman: Yes.

Rep. Hill: I’m concerned that number is significantly low. We’re talking about a region in the country that has not had tremendous investment. You know, strategic investment, yes.

But if you think that Ukraine would be brought up to an EU infrastructure standard at today’s inflated prices and at the EU’s luxurious requirements that’s kind of – that’s why I think that number is low.

Secondly, I looked at Sarajevo’s destruction by NATO in 1994. Similar region, similar building construction age. A lot of similarities, I would say. Not identical. Not comparing Sarajevans with people of Kyiv, but I am thinking about the age of construction and the style of construction.

And when you inflation adjusted the destruction of Sarajevo to today’s numbers you get, you know, an enormous number, which makes me doubt that 349 (billion dollars) is reliable and I do think all the countries – some 59 countries gathered in London the last week of June and pledged $60 billion toward reconstruction and I think we will see some of the countries that I’ve politely called out here for not contributing currently to ejecting Putin from Ukraine, I think, will step up financially in a coordinated reconstruction, anchored by using Russian assets for reconstruction.

Ms. Hoffman: Well, Congressmen, thank you so much for joining us today. I think this is an important show of bipartisanship on this issue.

A lot of this kind of collegiality and working across the aisle does happen in Congress. Unfortunately, it’s not covered quite so – it’s not as interesting to cable news. It doesn’t get the ratings. But we’re glad that you are here to show the support for Ukraine.

Thank you for everything you are doing, and please join me in thanking the congressmen. (Applause.)

 (END.)