Republicans in Congress and those eyeing 2024 presidential bids are condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanding that President Joe Biden respond forcefully.
These calls come even as dissenting voices on the Right make headlines sympathizing with Russian President Vladimir Putin or declaring the war irrelevant to American national security.
From Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a leading conservative populist, to traditional Republican Nikki Haley, a potential White House contender and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, top GOP figures on Capitol Hill and those with presidential ambitions are unequivocally repudiating Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine and pressuring Biden to retaliate with every tool in Washington’s diplomatic and economic sanctions arsenal.
Although many of these Republicans are blaming Biden’s “weak” foreign policy for emboldening Putin, they reserved their harshest rebukes for the Russian strongman.
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“Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and invasion of its territory must be met with strong American resolve,” Hawley said Thursday in a statement. “President Biden must act now to hit Vladimir Putin where it hurts, beginning with Russia’s energy sector. The Biden administration should sanction Russian energy production to a halt and help arm the Ukrainians to defend themselves.”
“Russian barbarism knows no end. The West must learn that when tyrants make threats, they’re serious,” Haley added, via published remarks. “At the U.N., I saw Russian lies every day. Putin and his thugs do not think like we do. They do not respect human life. They disdain freedom. They only understand strength.”
Beginning at least with President Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party was for decades the reliable home for military hawks who supported the projection of American power across the globe to counter U.S. adversaries such as the former Soviet Union and, more recently, Putin’s Russia. That consensus broke down in the latter half of the 2010s as some conservatives questioned the value of U.S. global leadership, especially when buttressed by overseas military deployments. Some conservatives have gone further, expressing admiration for authoritarian Russia and its strongman leader.
Lately, outspoken figures on the Right who do not view Russia as a U.S. adversary, or Putin as a brutal ruler, have garnered the attention of political observers. They include well-known political writers, television hosts, activists, and a few 2022 candidates for office.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that Americans’ suspicion of Putin is uncalled for. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?” he asked during his prime-time program. Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to former President Donald Trump, told Politico that the “new Republican Party” simply doesn’t care about Ukraine, period. And J.D. Vance, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, argued that “the Russia-Ukraine border dispute has nothing to do with our national security.”
As for Trump, it’s complicated.
The former president had a habit of praising Putin and lauding Russia during his four years in the White House. Indeed, he did so again on the eve of Russia’s invasion of its Eastern European neighbor, waxing eloquent about the so-called strategic genius of Putin’s Ukraine gambit. Yet as president, Trump’s policies often squeezed Putin, whether providing lethal aid to Ukraine to guard against Russian aggression or increasing domestic American energy supplies to counter the energy exports that are so important to Moscow’s bottom line.
In the deluge of statements Thursday from Republican politicians on the heels of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden took heavy fire, especially from those running for office in midterm elections. The president’s foreign policy, they argue, has been feckless. His mismanagement of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, they say, practically invited Putin to move on Kyiv because the botched exit made Washington look like a diminished power.
“Russia’s aggression against our allies in Ukraine is the direct result of Joe Biden’s weakness and lack of leadership on the world stage,” Walt Blackman, a House candidate in Arizona, said in a statement. “This is the predictable result of Biden surrendering to the Taliban and failing to stand up to our enemies. Joe Biden’s failed presidency has emboldened our enemies and made the world less safe, and if he had any sense he would resign in disgrace.”
But from Republicans in Congress with lawmaking authority, and those who hope to lead the party in the relatively near future, the emphasis was on Putin’s barbarity and calling for Biden to use every means of American power short of military intervention to exact maximum pain on Putin as punishment for invading Ukraine.
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“Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is reckless and evil,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who is poised to become speaker if Republicans win the majority in November. “The United States stands with the people of Ukraine and prays for their safety and resolve. Putin’s actions must be met with serious consequence.”
Tweeted Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who is mulling a 2024 presidential bid: “Vladimir Putin’s unproved, naked war of aggression must face the most severe consequences. I urge President Biden to finally impose these consequences.”
