Senate Republicans are watching as President Donald Trump is rapidly and systematically dismantling key tenets of U.S. foreign policy they’ve consistently supported — helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia and bolstering NATO.
As Trump openly disparages Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and echoes Russia’s calls for new Ukrainian elections, GOP senators are cautioning that they view the Trump team’s talks with Russian officials as simply preliminary. They’re willing to give their former colleague, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, some leeway to try to bring the Ukraine war to an end.
But many of these GOP senators are clearly wary of a lopsided deal that favors Russia. They also want Ukrainian and European leaders to be at the negotiating table, even as Trump insists they shouldn’t be.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told us in a brief interview Tuesday that he views the U.S.-Russia talks, which took place in Saudi Arabia, as a “work in progress.”
“I’m willing to give [Rubio] some space and some time to figure this out. But obviously, the Ukrainians have to be there — and the Europeans for that matter, too,” Thune said.
Yet Trump on Tuesday dismissed the notion that Ukraine should be involved in the talks, a stunning comment about a country that has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and seen many of its major cities attacked or destroyed. Trump went on to criticize Zelensky and falsely assert that Ukraine, not Russia, “started” the war. This has been a main talking point of Russian state media throughout the nearly three-year conflict.
“You’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years,” Trump said of Zelensky. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
The implication here is that the United States should have never helped the Ukrainians defend themselves from a Russian onslaught — a policy that, at least at the outset, had overwhelming GOP support.
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told us it’s his “fervent hope” that Trump is able to deliver a “good deal,” meaning Russia’s encroachments in Ukraine aren’t “rewarded” with territorial gains. Yet given Trump’s comments, it’s difficult to envision him being on the same page as Senate Republicans about what constitutes a “good” deal.
Since his return to the Oval Office just a month ago, Trump has ripped up decades of GOP foreign policy doctrine. As a result, the party’s traditional defense hawks are seeing their influence wane.
On Ukraine, Trump promised a quick end to a war that has cost the United States tens of billions of dollars while growing ever more unpopular with the GOP base. And Trump’s consistently deferential posture toward Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin will only make things more awkward for Republican hawks.
“Well I disagree with that,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who just returned from Kyiv, said of Trump’s rejection of a Ukrainian role in the negotiations.
“They were invaded by Putin and he’s responsible for murder, rape, torture, kidnapping of an untold number of Ukrainians. They’ve got to be at the table.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who has long opposed the idea of negotiating with Putin, called the Russian president “a war criminal who should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.” Wicker said Putin cannot be trusted in any sort of negotiation.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) had a terse response when we asked what he thought of Trump saying Ukraine “started” the conflict.
“I will simply make one statement: Russia attacked Ukraine,” Rounds said.
