Republican lawmakers — following former President Trump’s lead — are working with a wide range of conservative groups to pull back American support for Ukraine, the Middle East and Europe, officials tell us.

Driving the news: Eleven Senate GOP “no” votes on a $40 billion Ukraine aid package last week was the clearest sign the new coalition’s influence is expanding.

• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who led the Senate opposition, huddled in his office with several of the coalition’s key players before the House voted on the measure earlier this month.
• They included representatives from the Koch political network, Cato Institute, populist-oriented group American Moment and the American Conservative magazine, according to a person who attended.

Personnel: American Moment, founded in 2020, works to staff congressional offices — and potentially a future Republican administration — with more populist-oriented staffers.

• The group organized a conference in March, dubbed Up From Chaos, that people in that camp described as a watershed moment for the coalition.