Meet the Republican Millennials Warring for Trump's Mind

They happily use the label "Prioritizers."

Anti-globalist and less willing to support Ukraine than to counter China, millennial and Generation-X lawmakers are shaping a very different Republican foreign policy than the interventionist, old-guard boomer generation personified by the 82-year-old Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

Whether or not Donald Trump displaces President Joe Biden in November's election to return to the White House, the GOP will likely continue to war over how to best implement his "America First" agenda. And the global consequences of their changing policy stance could be far-reaching, from the Middle East to Asia to the Ukrainian battlefield in Europe.

So-called Prioritizers, such as 44-year-old Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, nonetheless distinguish themselves from those who fully oppose intervention in global politics, a coalition that has also gained strength.

"The American people are the ones who bear the burden and bear the pain of a foreign policy that is globalist, sometimes imperialist, and refuses to recognize any limits," Hawley told Newsweek. "It's just all about priorities. I've talked to very few voters who are isolationist."

American support for Ukraine's campaign against Russia's invasion has placed Republican Party divisions at the forefront of U.S. politics as advocates for restraint have bucked party leadership's decision to make America a primary figure in the conflict.

Speaker Mike Johnson, 52, who as a rank-and-file lawmaker opposed aiding Ukraine, ultimately listened to McConnell and pledged enough Republican support to advance a bipartisan measure dedicating $61 billion to the war effort, a decision that almost cost him his job after Republican opponents unsuccessfully filed a motion to trigger his ouster.

While the issue of Ukraine aid may not be resolved till after the 2024 election, the foreign policy divisions within the Republican Party are only likely to grow as Conservative politicos court Trump.

Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, 56, an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, told Newsweek the Republican Party was taking a dangerous turn, which she blamed on Trump.

"It all comes back to Donald Trump and their overwhelming willingness to do whatever they can to appease him and get on his good side," she said. "They are willing to sell the legacy of Ronald Reagan for MAGA expediency, and it's really sad because it's not good for our national security, nor global security."

The labels for the different foreign policy factions come from academics, with Jeremy Shapiro and Majda Ruge proving influential in defining parameters around the three groups in reports for the European Council on Foreign Relations.

According to the duo, Restrainers advocate for "strength at home and restraint in deploying and using military force abroad," shunning participation in military alliances that could entangle the country in major foreign conflict. Primacists believe America must maintain a dominant position in military and international affairs through vast alliances and robust spending. The Prioritizers occupy a place in the middle. While their rhetoric often mirrors the Restrainers, they hold a different view on China, urging America to do all it can to counter this top adversary. They embrace alliances, as long as doing so furthers their mission.

Israel appears to be the exception to the rules defining GOP divisions. While the conflict in Gaza has led to splintering between progressive and mainstream Democrats, nearly all Republicans are steadfast in their support.

Appealing to Trump

"The Restrainers have the strongest hold on the base, the Primacists have the strongest hold on the Republican officeholders and elite, but the Prioritizers have the best argument, they have the best compromise," Shapiro, research director of ECFR told Newsweek. "In the event of governance, it's my prediction that they will do the best in creating a foreign policy that appeals to President Trump as opposed to candidate Trump."

Leading the Prioritizers alongside Hawley is 39-year-old Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, an Iraq War veteran who's seen as a potential Trump vice-presidential candidate. Senator Eric Schmitt, 49, who serves alongside Hawley in representing Missouri, as well as Senator Roger Marshall, 63, of Kansas, who served in the Army Reserve, also support Prioritizer ideals. Both men—who've opposed Ukraine funding—told Newsweek they back increased military focus on countering China.

Prioritizers have also succeeded in courting allies, telling Newsweek that they see Senators Ted Budd, 52, of North Carolina; Ted Cruz, 53, of Texas; Marco Rubio, 53, of Florida; and Rick Scott, 71, of Florida, as potential backers of the cause.

Trump's view will ultimately be decisive in shaping the movement, political analysts say. The foreign policy factions are simultaneously trying to both understand it and influence it.

Shapiro said Trump has been inconsistent in his foreign policy, displaying hawkish attitudes in some instances and a restrained approach in others. This has resulted in the three groups carrying out a "war for Trump's mind," he said, where the factions are seeking to build a bridge between their ideologies and Trump's preferences.

Newsweek contacted Trump's team for comment. McConnell's communications director David Popp, said the Senate leader did not have anything to add beside his "voluminous" floor remarks on this subject. On April 23 following the passage of the recent foreign aid bill that included dollars for Ukraine, McConnell said: "American prosperity and security are the products of decades of American leadership.... Our global interests come with global responsibilities. Healthy alliances lighten the burden of these responsibilities. And at the end of the day, the primary language of strategic competition is strength."

One of Trump's clearest actions in office was reorienting the Department of Defense from counterterrorism to great power competition. Elbridge Colby, at the helm of this transition, is widely cited as one of the foremost minds within the Prioritizer movement.

"Bridge," as he's often called, served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development under Trump.

Since leaving government, the 44-year-old has co-founded a defense-focused think tank called The Marathon Initiative and advocated for the realignment of American resources toward the competition with China.

"People will say, 'Oh, I favor doubling the defense budget'—well, that's unlikely to happen," Colby told Newsweek. "The Primacists are making things a lot worse by frittering away our limited resources and political will on peripheral and secondary conflicts like Ukraine. I support the Ukrainians. I think it's important. But it's a lot less important than what's happening in Asia, and the Europeans can and are stepping up on Ukraine."

Colby believes it's not a matter of if, but when more politicians back the Prioritizer philosophy with the impending departure of long-standing GOP leaders of the baby boomer generation, such as McConnell.

The ones most loudly promoting Prioritizer views are often men who came of age at around the time of 9/11. Some served in the subsequent wars.

While there is overlap with Restrainer Conservatives, such as Senator Rand Paul, 61, of Kentucky, and Senator Mike Lee, 53, of Utah, in seeking cuts on spending in Ukraine, the Restrainers seek an even bigger scaling back of foreign policy and are also likely to reject certain actions against China—as they did in the case of seeking a possible U.S. ban on the Chinese-owned app TikTok.

One of the most notable examples of this occurred in March when Paul, in a well-publicized clash on the Senate floor, blocked Hawley's move to fast-track a TikTok ban.

Iraq War Revisited

The Prioritizer views align broadly with those of the influential Conservative Heritage Foundation. Its leader, Kevin Roberts, 50, is a self-described "recovering neocon" and former Primacist. He has become one of Trump's most significant figures, spearheading Project 2025—a memorandum spanning hundreds of pages outlining policy and personnel decisions aimed at shaping a Trump presidency and advancing America First conservatism.

"The Iraq War led me to full-throated neoconservatism," he told Newsweek. "And then the assessment of the Iraq War, five, seven years after it was a huge issue, led me to realize I was wrong and then therefore the people who advocated for it were wrong."

Roberts said Trump's election win in 2016 pushed him to look at American foreign policy in a new light. Such views are echoed by Republican Congressman Chip Roy, 51, of Texas, the policy chair of the Freedom Caucus, who has emerged as one of the lower chamber's forces in advancing Prioritizer views.

"The justification for the war and engagement in Iraq was a problem and that then was kind of a sin that dominoed, so you had two decades of kind of endless conflict," Roy told Newsweek. "There's a third way—which is a little bit more of the Reagan model, which is peace through strength. Trump maybe to a degree, we only had four years—but peace through strength, get in, engage, negotiate, let them know you're serious, but don't commit our men and women to endless conflict."

Roy has notably been critical of Ukraine while playing a key role in crossing bipartisan lines to promote legislation restricting TikTok. Alongside him is Congressman Matt Gaetz, 42, who represents Florida's 1st Congressional District, home to significant military bases and a robust veteran population. Gaetz sees one of his responsibilities as making sure his constituents do not have to go into combat unless there is no other option.

"America's bravest patriots live in my district," Gaetz told Newsweek. "I feel a deep and abiding sense of obligation not to get involved in foreign conflicts that lack a clear objective."

Others exemplifying Prioritizer ideals in the House include Indiana Congressman Jim Banks, 44, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and Florida Congressman Cory Mills, 43, an Iraq War veteran.

However, Primacists are not without their own backers under 50. Senators Katie Britt, 42, of Alabama; Tom Cotton, 47, of Arkansas; and Markwayne Mullin, 46, of Oklahoma, all back the Primacist ideology.

Whatever the result of the 2024 election, the shift in Republican foreign policy looks set to endure.

"They're not focused, in the way that previous Republican foreign policy elites were, on Washington and on sort of 'right-thinking opinion' about foreign policy or anything like that—it's very much Trump and the Republican base," Shapiro told Newsweek. "All of these camps are playing for Trump."

Correction 06/27/24, 1:35 p.m ET: This article originally attributed a quote to McConnell's press secretary, Doug Andres. The quote was from McConnell's communications director, David Popp.