As Russia prepared to strike Ukraine and the United States rushed to defend neighboring allies in Europe, former President Donald J. Trump had nothing but admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.He is “pretty smart,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday at a Florida fund-raiser, assessing the impending invasion like a real estate deal. “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” he said, “taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”Historians called the remarks unprecedented. “The idea that a former president would praise the man or leadership who American troops are even now traveling to confront and contain,” said Jeffrey Engel, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, “is astounding.” Yet Republican leaders, while condemning the invasion of Ukraine, stayed silent about the ex-president’s repeated praise this week for Mr. Putin, even as some Trump’ allies — from former administration figures to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson — amplified his Russian-friendly views to the party’s core.Foreign policy experts and Russia scholars said the apparent sympathy or ambivalence toward Moscow from elements of the right raised questions about the influence Mr. Trump continues to exert over candidates seeking to tap into his base, the legacy of a decade-old effort by the Kremlin to court American conservatives and the future of the G.O.P. amid a backlash against the Republican-led entanglements in Afghanistan and Iraq.Cold War-era Republicans, historians said, would have repudiated comments like Mr. Trump’s as un-American. Anders Stephanson, a historian of foreign policy at Columbia University, recalled an earlier Russian invasion. “Could one imagine Dwight Eisenhower praising Leonid Brezshnev for invading Czechoslovakia in 1968?” he asked in an email. “I think not.”Republican congressional leaders on Thursday stayed far away from the Putin-friendly views that had been emanating from the former president. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, denounced Mr. Putin at length and urged the Biden administration to provide military aid to help the Ukrainians fight back. Asked at a news conference in Louisville about Mr. Trump’s comments, the senator responded with silence.How Donald J. Trump Still Looms
Grip on G.O.P.Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.As the threat of a Russian invasion rose, Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state and C.I.A. chief under Mr. Trump, and now a potential presidential aspirant, appeared to take a similar line to his former boss. Mr. Putin was “an elegantly sophisticated counterpart” and “very shrewd,” Mr. Pompeo said.But as the Russian onslaught neared, Mr. Pompeo on Wednesday qualified those views. Mr. Putin was also “evil” and “should be crushed,” he told The Des Moines Register on a visit to Iowa.Other Republicans across the country who are closest to the party’s base — House members and primary candidates — have often sought to deflect questions about their stance on Ukraine with answers that avoid breaking with Mr. Trump or agreeing with President Biden. A chorus of Republicans are arguing that the White House is worrying more about a distant conflict than about illegal immigration.“Why does Joe Biden care more about Ukraine’s border than the U.S. southern border?” the official Twitter account of the Republican minority of the House Judiciary Committee declared on Wednesday.Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, last week took a step toward the Trump-supporting base and away from the Republican leadership, arguing that NATO should placate Russia by refraining from expanding membership to Ukraine.“My view is that China is our number one security and economic threat,” Mr. Hawley said in an interview last week. “This is what leads me to being very skeptical of an expansion. I don’t think we can afford, in both the literal and colloquial uses of that term, to expand our security commitments in Europe.”But on Thursday, Mr. Hawley joined the leadership in urging Mr. Biden to send Ukraine military equipment and “sanction Russian energy production to a halt.”The former president’s allies in theBy: David D. Kirkpatrick, Maggie Astor and Catie Edmondson
Title: Trump Praises Putin, Leaving Republicans in a Bind
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/trump-putin-russia-ukraine.html
Published Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:55:56 +0000
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