Russia invaded Ukraine Wednesday night, and Donald Trump immediately called in to Fox News to blame the invasion on “a rigged election.” While the invasion is a “very sad thing for the world and the country,” Trump said, really, it’s all President Joe Biden’s fault rather than the fault of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the guy who invaded another country. If Trump had been in the White House, “this would not have happened,” Trump said.
The invasion wouldn’t have happened “for a very good reason, and I’ll explain that to you some day,” he said to Laura Ingraham. Perhaps that’s related to Trump’s own relationship with Putin, which he described on the call as, “I got along with him fantastically.”
Also on Wednesday evening, speaking at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said of Putin, “I mean, he’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.” This assessment of Putin’s smarts brought to you by a guy who, when Ingraham noted an amphibious assault on Ukraine, thought she was saying the U.S. had sent in troops.
Trump’s fawning take on Putin has strongly influenced his entire party’s position on the Russian dictator, which is coming strongly into play in Republican responses to the invasion of Ukraine. Trump may be out front on calling Putin “smart” for invading, but the official Republican position, laid out in a statement from House Republican leaders, is to blame Biden.
”Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a renewed invasion of Ukraine is reprehensible,” the statement opened, before moving directly to their real interest. “Sadly, President Biden consistently chose appeasement and his tough talk on Russia was never followed by strong action.”
That message was received by other House Republicans:
Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan took the same tone, tweeting, “POTUS and his administration keep claiming they are defenders of democracy, and yet, they just allowed a tyrant to steamroll over a democracy in Europe.”
Yet you know if Biden had moved a large number of troops to defend Ukraine—a very bad idea, to be clear—those same Republicans would be screaming in outrage about that.
Democrats, by contrast, just … condemned the invasion, and acknowledged the seriousness of the moment.
“An attack on Ukraine is an attack on democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted. “I applaud @POTUS for his forceful leadership in imposing the first tranche of swift & severe sanctions to counter Russian aggression. The U.S. & our allies stand together in our unwavering support of the Ukrainian people.”
”Putin’s decision to invade is an evil, panicked move of weakness and will be his defining mistake. The Ukrainian people will fight for as long as it takes to secure their nation from this foreign tyrant, and the United States will stand with them in this fight,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted. “Tonight, the entire Post World War international order sits on a knife edge. If Putin does not pay a devastating price for this transgression, then our own security will soon be at risk.”
He continued: “We must be unceasingly in our assistance to the Ukrainian people. We must levy crippling sanctions on Russia. And we must cut off Putin and his cronies from the global economy. A strong, swift response is vital”—not only for Ukraine, but for the U.S., Murphy made clear, noting, “we must remember that Putin has plans for us too. He and his agents will use this crisis to try to divide Americans from each other and to separate America from our allies. In this, we must remain vigilant and united. This is not a moment for politics to trump security.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii responded directly to Trump’s praise of Putin, tweeting, “This is bizarre and deeply dangerous—but sadly to be expected from Trump and his fawning admiration of Putin. It should go without saying that we shouldn’t celebrate authoritarianism. We should unite against Russian aggression and stand with our allies.”
This is a horrific and frightening moment, and Donald Trump is doing his level best to make it worse—with the Republican Party following just a few steps behind. They’re using Trump’s extreme statements as cover for turning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine into a domestic partisan issue, not out of deep convictions about the invasion in question but out of simple opportunism, the ruthless view that anything and everything is cause to maneuver for political power.
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