ORLANDO, Fla. — The annual Conservative Political Action Conference commenced in the shadow of Russian forces invading Ukraine the night before, underscoring foreign policy differences on the Right.
Some leaders hope that the normally lively annual gathering of conservatives in the wake of the invasion can mend the divides between interventionist and noninterventionist factions.
“I think it’s providential,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told the Washington Examiner. “One of the concerns I’ve had as a lifelong conservative and a recovering neocon is that we seem in the movement to have created a false dichotomy.”
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“By virtue of gathering here, we’re going to start to come to grips with that as a movement. And when we do, maybe our Republican senators, who are very fractured on this issue, will be more unified,” Roberts said. “If they’re not more unified, then — and I say this respectfully about the president — then Biden is really going to bumble this more than he already has.”
In the days leading up to the invasion, some Republicans were pushing President Joe Biden to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and agreeing with his decision to send more troops to nearby European countries. But others in the conservative sphere criticized the move to add troops and longtime push to expand NATO. Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned why the public should “hate” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
K.T. McFarland, who was briefly deputy national security adviser during former President Donald Trump’s administration, appeared unscheduled on the main stage Thursday morning to address the Russian invasion. She presented it as an escalation of “the complex generational struggle that we have been in of the forces of darkness against the forces of light.”
“What we have to do as freedom-loving people everywhere is understand we need a strong economy, we need strong technology, we certainly need strong armed forces, and we certainly need a strong national will,” McFarland said.
“We hope,” she added, “you’ll take from what you’re going to learn here today, tomorrow, and the next day, and you’re going to go back to your communities because we’re not getting the answers from Washington.”
One thing Republicans could agree on was that Biden put the United States in a weak position in relation to Russia.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, a critic of Biden sending troops to Eastern Europe, brought up Ukraine on CPAC’s main stage.
“Joe Biden, he comes to office, and what does he do? He shuts down American energy production and greenlights Russian energy production,” Hawley said. “Is it any wonder that Vladimir Putin feels emboldened to do whatever the heck it is he wants to do? Is it any wonder that China feels emboldened to do whatever it is that they want to do?”
Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun told the Washington Examiner, “You don’t make excuses, like the Biden administration is doing, when they shut down our energy industry, giving Putin $100 a barrel of oil. When you get out of Afghanistan in a clumsy way, you’re projecting weakness. But they crossed the line, Putin did, and he’ll keep doing more of it unless we use the leverage that we’ve got, which will be sanctions and economic power.”
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For the most part, though, news and policies surrounding the Russian invasion took a backseat to the regular preplanned conservative programming. Some of the day’s biggest speakers, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, did not broach the subject.
