By Alexander Ward and Matt Berg

Rep. Jim Jordan, one of two declared candidates for speaker of the House, said he wouldn’t immediately bring Ukraine funding to the floor, preferring instead to focus on issues at the southern border. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

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The race for speaker of the House is on, and some Republicans fear the path to the gavel could require curbing further Ukraine aid.

Rep. JIM JORDAN (R-Ohio), one of two declared candidates for the post, said he wouldn’t immediately bring Ukraine funding to the floor, preferring instead to focus on issues at the southern border. Some Republicans and Democrats think there’s a border-bill-for-Ukraine-funding compromise to be had. But on Fox and Friends this morning, Jordan said he needs to know more about the U.S. objective in Ukraine and how Kyiv would use the aid “before we even think about sending more money.”

The other, Rep. STEVE SCALISE (R-La.), hasn’t weighed in yet, but his recent voting record suggests he’s more open to sending more money to Kyiv. He scored a “B” in advocacy group Defending Democracy Together’s rating of lawmakers’ level of support for Ukraine’s cause — that’s out of grades that range from A to F.

Most Republicans (and Democrats) would supply Kyiv with more funds and weapons, so it’s possible the rank and file will pressure the future speaker to force a vote. But it’s just as plausible that the hard-right, Ukraine-skeptical faction that ousted KEVIN McCARTHY trades commitments to limit Kyiv aid in exchange for the speakership.

Asked about that possibility, Rep. DON BACON (R-Neb.) told NatSec Daily “we may get some of that,” noting he could imagine some of his colleagues insisting on that condition. “If the GOP pulls the rug out from Ukraine and Russia prevails, it will be a disgusting legacy the party will own for decades.”

A House Republican aide, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press, said the conference is unclear about what is going to happen next: “It all depends on who is the speaker.”

The staffer said it likely will take another two weeks to decide who succeeds McCarthy, leading lawmakers to pass a short-term Continuing Resolution to fund the government before finally passing a megabill with Ukraine aid folded in. “But if it’s Jordan, I don’t know.”

Rep. KELLY ARMSTRONG (R-N.D.) said part of the blame for the precarious funding situation lies with President JOE BIDEN. He has yet to defend his Ukraine policy and why it’s in the national interest to the public, he argues. “There are real reasons why we should be actively engaged there,” he told NatSec Daily. “But you know what, Mr. President, get out and tell the American people. Because otherwise this is going to be a real problem because you're losing your constituency."

Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.) offered a rationale that might appeal to Republican skeptics. “If we were just to abandon Ukraine, it would reinforce the Chinese narrative that is used against us that we're unreliable, that we’re a hollowed-out power,” he said, adding that the way the U.S. helps Kyiv ought to change.

“I also think it's unrealistic to believe that we're going to be able to continue to provide $30-$60 billion every six months. This effort has gotten less popular, not more popular for a variety of reasons,” Rubio said. “I don't think that this policy that some believe — that we're going to do as much as it takes for as long as it takes — is either wise or realistic. Hopefully, that’s the debate we’ll have in Congress over the next few weeks.”

On Wednesday, Biden said he planned to deliver a “major” address on why the U.S. should continue supporting Ukraine, though he did not say when that would come.

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Many of today’s Military systems and platforms were designed to operate independently. Through our 21st Century Security vision, Lockheed Martin is accelerating innovation, connecting defense and digital to enhance the performance of major platforms, to equip customers to stay ahead of emerging threats. Learn more.

U.S. SHOOTS DOWN TURKISH DRONE: A U.S. F-16 fighter jet shot down a Turkish drone that was flying over a base in northeast Syria where American forces are located, a person familiar with the situation told our own LARA SELIGMAN.

The drone, which belonged to the Turkish government, was armed with air-to-ground missiles and deemed a threat to the American troops and Syrian Democratic Forces at the Tal Baydar base, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

The uncrewed aerial vehicle was a Bayraktar TB2, a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone built by Turkish defense company Baykar for use primarily by the Turkish armed forces, the person said. The Turkish defense ministry reportedly denied it owned the drone.

Meanwhile, a drone attack on a military college graduation has left dozens of people dead in the Syrian city of Homs, per local reports.

ISRAELIS AND AZERIS IN CAHOOTS: Israel quietly helped Azerbaijan recapture Nagorno-Karabakh by providing powerful weapons to the country ahead of its day-long offensive last month, officials and experts told The Associated Press’ ISABEL DEBRE.

Weeks before Azeri forces took the ethnically Armenian enclave, military cargo ships flew between an Israeli air base and airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh as Western governments called for peace. Weapons used in the offensive, largely supplied by Israel and Turkey, included heavy artillery, rocket launchers and drones, experts told The AP.

“For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” ARMAN AKOPIAN, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The AP. “I don’t see why Israel should not be in the position to express at least some concern about the fate of people being expelled from their homeland.”

Armenian Prime Minister NIKOL PASHINYAN called the offensive “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing” after more than 100,000 people — about 80 percent of the enclave’s Armenian population — fled in the last two weeks.

DEADLY RUSSIAN STRIKE: A Russian missile struck a cafe and grocery store in northeastern Ukraine today, killing 51 people as they held a memorial service, Reuters’ VITALII HNIDYI reports.

The village had just 330 residents following war-time orders to evacuate, Ukrainian officials said. Some families stayed, however, and children were among those killed in today’s attack — one of the deadliest strikes on civilians since the war began.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY traveled to the southern Spanish city of Granada to ask nearly 50 European leaders for more aid. “Europe must be strong,” he said, prompting many of his counterparts to pledge continued support for Kyiv.

Zelenskyy’s pleas come as Russia plans to build a permanent naval base on the Black Sea coast in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, our own CLAUDIA CHIAPPA reports. Abkhazia and Russia have already signed an agreement and the new base will be in the Ochamchira district “in the near future,” ASLAN BZHANIA, the leader of the occupied Moscow-backed region, told the Izvestiya newspaper today.

On Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal’s THOMAS GROVE and JARED MALSIN reported the Kremlin has withdrawn the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet from its main base in occupied Crimea. Citing Western officials and satellite images, WSJ wrote that Russia had moved its vessels from Sevastopol — which has been targeted by Ukrainian missiles — to other ports that “offer better protection.”

Read: EU to U.S.: Help, we can’t cope without you on Ukraine by our own NICHOLAS VINOCUR, CLEA CAULCUTT and SARAH ANNE AARUP

DOD’S CHINA VIEWS: The Pentagon’s top Indo-Pacific official said China is using its military to achieve regional goals, a sign that Beijing is more aggressive and less concerned about influencing players with niceties.

“It isn't the case anymore that the PLA is just in the background. It is now in the forefront of the way that Beijing is going about trying to achieve its revisionist aims in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea border with India and beyond — and I think that's a significant change in PLA strategy," ELY RATNER said during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies today.

He also said China was modernizing and diversifying its nuclear forces all while failing to maintain open lines of military communication with the U.S.

In other words, the U.S. sees a more capable Chinese military using its might to bully regional players and gain more power in the world. We’ll have to wait for the release of this year’s China Military Power report for more specifics on the Pentagon’s assessments of Beijing’s plans.

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TRUMP ON BORDER WALL: The Biden administration will add to the southern border wall begun by former President DONALD TRUMP, a reversal of its earlier position. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, demanded an apology from the person polls suggest he will face in the 2024 general election.

Biden’s decision “prove[s] that I was right” to start construction of the wall, Trump wrote on Truth Social this morning. “Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving…I will await his apology!”

The administration waived 26 federal laws, many of them in place to protect the local wildlife and environment, to allow construction in southern Texas.

“The United States Border Patrol’s…Rio Grande Valley Sector is an area of ‘high illegal entry,’ the Department of Homeland Security noted in the announcement of the move, citing that Border Patrol encountered 245,000 illegal entrants as of early August 2023.

MAKING CYBER ACCESSIBLE: Rep. NANCY MACE (R-S.C.) introduced a bill this week aiming to prohibit federal agencies from setting minimum education requirements for cyber positions unless required by law, our friends at Morning Cybersecurity (for Pros!) report.

The measure, dubbed the Modernizing the Acquisition of Cybersecurity Experts Act, or the MACE Act (get it?), would also require the Office of Personnel Management to collect and publish data on the education levels of federal cybersecurity professionals, which could help identify any disparities in hiring practices.

Mace, who chairs the House Oversight cyber subcommittee, argues that removing educational barriers would only help fill the gap in cyber workers that are desperately needed in government while also attracting the best talent.

“Today, a brilliant computer whiz who drops out of Harvard after a year or two — as BILL GATES did — would stand little chance of securing a federal cybersecurity job,” Mace told MC. “We often hear that the federal government should be a 'model employer' and the elimination of unnecessary degree barriers ensures the federal government is such an employer.”

HELO HELP: The Army has finally received a replacement for the 1970s-era engines in its Black Hawk and Apache helicopters, our friends at Morning Defense report.

The machines will also power the service’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft once it begins production. General Electric’s Improved Turbine Engine Program was supposed to be delivered at the end of 2022, but it got kicked down the road amid supply chain and workforce issues.

Both competitors in the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program — Lockheed Martin and Bell — have been waiting on the engine and have long since completed building their prototypes for the next step in the Army’s competition. The companies had planned to make their first flights in 2023.

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WILSON V. KELLY: Rep. FREDERICA WILSON (D-Fla.) is considering suing former Trump chief of staff JOHN KELLY for defamation, our own MIA McCARTHY reports.

In a recent statement to CNN, Kelly confirmed stories about how Trump disparages people in the military, specifically those who suffered injuries while on duty. But when he was in office, Kelly accused Wilson of being “selfish” for calling Trump’s comments to the widow of a fallen Marine insensitive. Trump had told the widow her husband “must have known what he signed up for,” a comment Wilson overheard because she was nearby with the grieving family.

The widow’s husband, Army Sgt. LA DAVID JOHNSON, was killed in an ambush attack in Niger in 2017 and was in a mentoring program Wilson started in Miami. She said she is still close with the family.

Now, all these years later, Wilson said she may take Kelly to court. “This is personal. This has to do with my feelings and my name,” the lawmaker said. “I don’t want generations of children, years from now, to pick up a book or read an article about me and John Kelly and I’m misrepresented.”

Kelly didn’t respond to requests for comment.

IRAN EXPERTS PUSH BACK: Iran experts named in a recent Semafor report are pushing back on its main conclusion: That the U.S. and European analysts were targets of a yearslong influence operation and overly deferential to Iran’s views, thereby presenting Tehran-friendly arguments to the public during Iran-U.S. nuclear talks. At least one of the three went on to work for ROB MALLEY, the U.S. special envoy for Iran on leave over a security clearance suspension.

The International Crisis Group’s DINA ESFANDIARY was one of the mentioned experts. She declined comment when Semafor’s JAY SOLOMON asked but today went to X to counter its characterization of her.

“The Iranian government never directed any of my work or articles. I have been critical of the Islamic Republic’s policies, just like I have been critical of the policies of other countries,” she wrote. As an analyst, she said “we met with officials from all the negotiating parties during the nuclear talks and other conferences because it was our job to speak with all sides and understand what was going on.”

“I cannot be held responsible for how officials present this among themselves,” Esfandiary continued.

ALI VAEZ, also at ICG and named in the Semafor article, quote-tweeted Esfandiary with a red 100 emoji. ICG released a statement yesterday defending Esfandiary and Vaez, asserting “we make no secret of the fact that talking to all sides is integral to our work.”

MEERA PATTNI, head of global communications for Semafor, said “this is one of the biggest stories in Washington right now and we stand behind Jay and his groundbreaking reporting on the subject."

Read: Blinken: U.S. and EU need legal frameworks to seize Russian assets by our own VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA

— Former Rep. CHRIS STEWART (R-Utah) is now the chair of the Utah Aerospace and Defense Association.

— Apogee has promoted FRANK VARGA to chief operating officer from vice president of operations.

— Primer Technologies is adding retired Maj. Gen. CLAY HUTMACHER to its board. He led the Army Special Operations Aviation Command.

— DEREK MITCHELL is rejoining CSIS as a non-resident senior adviser. Mitchell served as the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar.

— Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER, The Washington Post: The world needs Pope Francis to be fearless on China

— EMMA ASHFORD and EVAN COOPER, Foreign Policy: Yes, the world is multipolar

— MATTHEW KROENIG and DAN NEGREA, National Review: Biden’s address must correct for his failure to outline a Ukraine strategy

— The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 10:30 a.m.: Sustainability in the Department of Defense — plans in action and challenges for leveraging technology to advance sustainability and resilience

— The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, 1 p.m.: The economic power play: examining China's coercive tactics

Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who wants nothing more than the funding for this newsletter to dry up.

We also thank our producer, Gregory Svirnovskiy, who offers money out of his own pocket to sustain us.

A message from Lockheed Martin:

Our mission is to prepare you for the future by engineering advanced capabilities today.

Many of today’s military systems and platforms were designed to operate independently. Through our 21st Century Security vision, Lockheed Martin is accelerating innovation, connecting defense and digital to enhance the performance of major platforms, to equip customers to stay ahead of emerging threats. Learn more.

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