WASHINGTON — Hours before the House voted this month to approve $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, lobbyists affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, the prominent conservative think tank, were privately pressing Republicans to oppose the measure.
In a move that seized the attention of conservatives across Washington, Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage’s lobbying operation, released a searing statement — its headline blaring “Ukraine Aid Package Puts America Last” — that framed the measure as reckless and ill-considered.
“America is struggling with record-setting inflation, debt, a porous border, crime and energy depletion,” Ms. Anderson said, “yet progressives in Washington are prioritizing a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine.”
The Heritage Foundation’s position helps explain why 57 House Republicans ultimately voted against the package, in the strongest show of opposition in the party’s ranks to Congress’s deepening support for Ukraine’s effort to fend off the Russian invasion. It reflected the increasing potency of the “America First” impulse in the Republican Party, and how thoroughly it has trickled up to the thought leaders shaping its policy worldview.
