Republicans are ramping up attacks on President Joe Biden’s Ukraine response, yet the party is sending mixed messages on what exactly he is getting wrong.
To date, Biden and leaders of the other G-7 and NATO nations have crippled Russia’s economy by cutting off the country from the international banking system, placing sanctions on Russia’s oligarchy, severely limiting luxury imports and exports, and surging humanitarian and security aid to the Ukrainian people.
BIDEN ACTIVATES $800 MILLION IN NEW SECURITY ASSISTANCE FOR UKRAINE
Biden even broke with Western allies and instituted a sweeping ban on the import of Russian energy products following a bipartisan pressure campaign on the White House. The president had resisted targeting Russian oil to protect the global energy supply and limit further price hikes on an already inflated domestic gas market, and most Republicans tacitly accepted Biden’s escalating actions, if not outright offering support for the president’s approach.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently asked the West to boost Ukraine’s supply of fighter jets and to institute a no-fly zone over the country. The Biden administration has rebuffed both requests, claiming they would escalate tensions with Russia and draw NATO into a direct conflict with the Russian military, but it’s worth noting that Biden met Ukraine’s request for additional security aid in the form of surface-to-air missile defense systems, shoulder-mounted anti-armor launchers, millions of rounds of ammunition, and drones. That equipment was activated as part of the $14 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine aid included in the omnibus spending bill Biden signed into law on Wednesday.
Zelensky’s Wednesday address to Congress, in which he directly petitioned the United States and Biden himself for more military assistance, emboldened Republicans to ratchet up attacks against what one senior GOP aide on Capitol Hill called a “hands-off” handling of the conflict.
“Our own president needs to step up his game. We’re not doing nearly enough quickly enough to help the Ukrainians,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday. “Comparing Zelensky to Biden is depressing.”
“Provide them the planes,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy added. “Provide them the armament to fight a war that they did not create.”
Furthermore, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday reaffirmed his past calls for assassination attempts against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I hope he will be taken out, one way or the other. I don’t care how they take him out,” he told reporters when asked about his past comments at a press conference. “I don’t care if we send him to the Hague and try him. I just want him to go.”
“He’s a war criminal. I wish somebody had taken Hitler out in the ’30s. Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate leader. He is a war criminal. He needs to be dealt with by the Russian people,” Graham said. “I am asking for the Russian people to rise up and end this reign of terror, for you and the world at large.
But Republicans are not entirely united in their attacks against the administration. A handful of far-right lawmakers, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, argued for complete nonintervention from the U.S.
“We regret any human suffering and we mourn any loss of human life, but we cannot, and we must not allow our compassion to blind us to reason and common sense,” she said in a statement. “This is an eight-year long-smoldering conflict in which peace agreements have been routinely violated by both sides. It concerns a country in which Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitt Romney have direct financial interests, a country which government only exists because of the Obama state department helped to overthrow the previous regime.”
Marge Greene issues a statement tonight against help for Ukraine. Says both sides are at fault, the Ukraine govt only exists because of Obama, and Biden, Pelosi and Romney have financial interests in the country. pic.twitter.com/9Ra8VWpKsT
— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) March 16, 2022
Cawthorn was also filmed at a private event calling Zelensky a “thug.”
“Remember, the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it is incredibly evil,” he said. “It has been pushing woke ideologies.”
Rep. Madison Cawthorn calls Zelensky a “thug,” says Ukrainian government is “incredibly evil.” pic.twitter.com/RMf3Xe8sOq
— Russian American Daily (@RussiaUSA) March 11, 2022
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has continued his attempts to refocus the conflict around his term in office.
“People forget so quickly, with the help of the Fake News, that it was me that got the 20 out of 28 delinquent NATO countries to start paying the money that they owed in order to rebuild a floundering NATO,” Trump said Wednesday following Zelensky’s address to Congress. “Nobody knew things would happen so rapidly, but NATO was poor and now it is rich, and all of the Fake News commentators that said Trump was tearing down NATO should be ashamed of themselves for telling lies.”
“Bush and Obama did nothing but make speeches and talk — I acted and acted strongly. I said to them, ‘If you don’t pay up, no protection,'” he said. “They all paid up and paid up quickly. It’s a story that’s never reported, but that’s only because we have a corrupt press in our Country!”
Though Trump eventually condemned Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians, he repeatedly praised Putin as “a genius” and called his actions in the lead-up to and the opening days of the war “savvy.”
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“There’s only been one president in recent history who coddled, excused, and cozied up to Vladimir Putin — Donald Trump,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “And let’s not forget, the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party enabled Trump for four years as he sold out Ukraine, undermined our allies, and embarrassed us on the global stage.”
