As the self-appointed King gloats in an unsurprising embrace of Russia that upends decades of American foreign policy, elected Republicans, who have spent their careers backing European allies and being hawkish toward Moscow, are sitting on their collective hands.
(Yes, this ^^^ was put out by the White House.)
On Wednesday following a closed-door Senate lunch with JD Vance, Majority Leader John Thune emerged to declare, “Right now, you have got to give him some space.”
“What I’m in support of is a peaceful outcome and result in Ukraine,” South Dakota’s Thune told reporters after the meeting, “and I think right now the administration, the president and his team are working to achieve that.” Of Trump’s labeling of Ukraine’s Zelensky as a dictator, he simply said, “The president speaks for himself.”
According to several who attended the lunch, the topic of Trump’s courting of Vladimir Putin did not even come up.
However, other examples abound of Republicans voicing dismay at tRump’s statements about Ukraine’s president or his willingness to abandon long-standing allies. Still they refuse to challenge him.
- Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said, “My advice to the president, if he asked me, would be not to give Vladimir Putin the benefit of sitting with a democratically elected head of state.” Wicker made it clear that Trump hadn’t asked his advice, but also called Putin “an international scofflaw and a war criminal of the worst kind.”
- “Well, it sounds like that’s the direction they are headed,” Lisa Murkowski said of Trump’s embrace of new relations with Russia. “I think we need to be very careful.”
- Senator Thom Tillis on Trump labeling Zelensky a dictator: “It’s not a word I would use,” he said. “There is no moral equivalency between Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky.”
- Senator Joni Ernst, when asked about Trump meeting in person with Putin, shrugged her shoulders.
- Senator Lindsay Graham gave his usual boot-licking approval, saying Trump “is Ukraine’s best hope to end this war honorably and justly,” adding he believes the president “will be successful and he will achieve this goal in the Trump way.”
- Senator Mitch McConnell has said nothing.
There was one Republican who stood up for Zelensky and called out tRump.
