Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a rumored candidate for secretary of state, seems to have damaged his chances among Senate Republicans by tangling with a reporter who mentioned Russia’s human rights abuses.
“There’s a lunatic fringe in every organization,” Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said of Rohrabacher on Thursday, after Rohrabacher’s controversial interview.
Rohrabacher, who has long supported a conciliatory approach with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the charge of human rights accusations against Russia were “baloney” during a Wednesday interview.
“Where do you come from?” he asked the reporter. Hearing the reply of Moldova, a former Soviet satellite state, Rohrabacher dismissed the suggestion. “Oh, well that’s good, then the audience knows you’re biased,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has been accused of a variety of human rights abuses. Numerous journalists critical of the government have been killed in recent years. President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law in 2012, a sanctions bill named for a whistleblowing lawyer who died in government custody after reporting on fraud by Russian government officials.
The California Republican believes that the United States should coordinate with Russia to fight terrorist groups and prepare for the rise of China as a major power. “If it’s right for us to join in and cooperate and have a better relationship with Russia, in order to defeat radical Islam and to pull China back a bit, well, that’s a good thing,” Rohrabacher said Wednesday on Yahoo News Now. “Russia is no longer the Soviet Union.”
Those comments are at odds with mainstream GOP foreign policy views, but they hew more closely to President-elect Trump’s campaign rhetoric. “When you think about it, wouldn’t it be nice if we got along with Russia?” Trump said in July. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of ISIS?”
Such policy agreements, as well as Rohrabacher’s defense of Trump when GOP leaders distanced themselves from their standard-bearer in the fall presidential election, has made Rohrabacher a contender for a plum position at the State Department; if not secretary of state, then a leading adjutant position.
But McCain’s comment about Rohrabacher’s performance indicates a possible hurdle. And another senator, Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., seemed to agree when he was asked about the House lawmaker. “Those don’t represent my views,” Flake said.
Flake also hedged when asked if the interview was enough to get Senate Republicans to vote against the Rohrabacher should be be nominated — another possibly dangerous sign. “After those kind of comments, that’s — let’s just say, that’s not where we are,” Flake said.
