Outspoken members of US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement have expressed frustration at the President’s decision to supply Ukraine with new weapons.
Several prominent members of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) have spoken out in frustration at US President Donald Trump’s apparent U-turn on support for Kyiv.
This weekend, Trump announced that he had reached a deal with European partners to provide Patriot Air Defense systems for Ukraine. On Monday, Trump announced new tariffs if no agreement was reached by September 2, and on Tuesday, he mused at the possibility of providing Ukraine with Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.
The MAGA movement has long been hostile to Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in particular, dating back to the “perfect phone call” in Trump’s first term, which resulted in his first impeachment.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was initial bipartisan support for Ukraine throughout 2022. But MAGA republicans in opposition under former President Joe Biden made Ukraine a wedge issue after 2023. They held up supplemental funding for military support for Ukraine for six months until May 2024.
But as Trump grew impatient in his failure to secure a ceasefire with Vladimir Putin, he warmed up to Kyiv and soured on Russia in recent weeks.
MAGA voices who have become increasingly critical of Trump over his handling of investigations and the bombing of Iran are now expressing their frustration over his change of heart on Ukraine.
“I said it on every rally stage: ‘No more money to Ukraine. We want peace.’ We just want peace for those people,” Greene told the New York Times. “And guess what? People haven’t changed.”
Steve Bannon, an influential MAGA ideologue with a large following, said on his War Room Podcast on Monday.
“The Ukraine War is a European war. And Zelensky and the collection of crooks that work for Zelensky want to do nothing more. Their number one objective is to hang this on Trump and make this Trump’s war, make this America’s war,” Bannon said.
Trump’s formal policy toward Ukraine is still emerging, but it is clear that some in the MAGA orbit are beginning to question his strategy on Ukraine.
Trump still has several billion dollars that he could use to arm and support Ukraine from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) approved under Biden. But Trump will require the support of Congress if he plans to pass a new supplemental stimulus bill to sustain Ukraine into next year.
Outspoken Congressional opponents of Ukraine include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and others.
“This is NATO. This is the Europeans dragging, like on a fishing hook, Donald Trump into this war,” Bannon said in the same Podcast.
A recent Ipsos/Reuters poll from April 2025 found that 63% of Republicans opposed continuing to provide weapons and aid to Ukraine.