A bipartisan chorus of members of Congress and others criticized U.S. President Donald J. Trump for saying he respects Russian President Vladimir Putin and for suggesting he may ease sanctions on Russia irrespective of its ongoing war against Ukraine.
Trump, in a Feb. 5 interview with FOX-TV’s Bill O’Reilly, said that “I do respect him” of Putin.
“But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer,” O’Reilly said, to which Trump replied: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
But “Putin’s a killer,” O’Reilly said, to which Trump replied: “There are a lot of killers around, believe me. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
Then Trump intimated again that he would tie easing of Russian sanctions to the Kremlin’s help in fighting Islamic terrorism rather than ending the war against Ukraine and returning the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
“I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not,” Trump said. “And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world — that’s a good thing.”
The reaction came swiftly and severely, suggesting that the Trump administration will face a major fight in Congress and in Western capitals if he eases up on Russia.
On ABC-TV with George Stephanopolous on Feb. 5, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Democrat-Minnesota) responded.
“What I would say here is you cannot compare any leaders in our country to what Vladimir Putin has done. This is a man and a regime that has taken down a passenger plane in Ukraine, killing hundreds of people. This is a regime that has been known to poison human rights activists, including a recent incident, where someone is laying in a coma in a hospital. This is a regime that, we believe — 17 intelligence agencies in our own country have said — has tried to influence our own election,” Klobuchar said.
“I don’t think there’s any comparison. And I really do resent that he would say something like that.”
Klobuchar, noting her New Year’s Eve trip to Ukraine where she learned “first-hand what they’re facing every day there,” said she favors expanding sanctions against Russia.
Also on the program, U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse (Republican-Nebraska) expressed similar outrage over Trump’s stance.
“Is the U.S. at all like Putin’s regime? Not at all. Truth affirms freedom of speech. Putin is no friend of freedom of speech. Putin is an enemy of freedom of religion. The U.S. celebrates freedom of religion. Putin is an enemy of the free press. The U.S. celebrates free press. Putin is an enemy of political dissent. The U.S. celebrates political dissent and the right for people to argue free from violence about places or ideas that are in conflict. There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom-loving nation in the history of the world and the murderous thugs that are in Putin’s defense of his cronyism,” Sasse said.
He went on to say that he doesn’t “understand what the president’s position is on Russia, but I can tell you what my position is on Russia. Russia is a great danger to a lot of its neighbors and Putin has, as one of his core objectives, fracturing NATO, which is one of the greatest military alliances in the history of the world. And so Putin is a mess. He’s committed all sorts of murderous thuggery. And I am opposed to the way Putin conducts himself in world affairs and I hope that the president also wants to show moral leadership on this issue.”
Other congressional leaders, including U.S. Sen. John McCain (Republican-Arizona) and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (Republican-Wisconsin) have simliarly taken a tough stand against Russia over its war against Ukraine.
In an interview on Feb. 5 with CNN, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) also objected to Trump’s respect for Putin.
“Putin is a former KGB agent, he’s a thug, he was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election,” McConnell said. “Russia’s annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine and messed around in our elections. No, I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does.”
Putin critics say he can’t be counted on to be a U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. In the first place, critics say that fighting terrorism should be in Russia’s interests and not the subject of bargaining. In the second place, critics say that Putin’s action in Syria, for example, show that his true aim is keeping dictator Bashar al-Assad in power, not in fighting ISIS.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) called on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to examine Trump’s suspicious ties to Russia.
“I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump. I think we have to have an investigation by the FBI into his financial, personal and political connections to Russia and we want to see his tax returns so we can have truth in the relationship [with] Putin, whom he admires,” Pelosi said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
