Trump largely isolated in praise for Putin as GOP condemns Russian invasion

From Capitol Hill to the campaign trail, prominent GOP voices, including some close Trump loyalists, vowed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would pay a severe price for ordering a military offensive against Ukraine, even as the party sought to blame President Biden for the crisis. Meanwhile, Republican leaders strained to articulate an alternative policy to counter Russia’s revanchist campaign — at once insisting on more severe measures and opposing the deployment of U.S. forces, which Biden has said is not an option…

Former vice president Mike Pence, while critical of Biden, also sharply attacked Putin in a Fox News appearance Wednesday evening. “No one in the GOP should be praising Vladimir Putin. He’s a former KGB officer and a dictator and a thug. We should be clear about that,” said Marc Short, the former vice president’s longtime chief of staff, in an interview.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he had breakfast Thursday with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in between a conversation with a top State Department official and calls with Democratic senators to discuss a supplemental appropriations bill that would aid the Ukrainian people. Graham said he wasn’t a fan of Trump’s “genius” comment about Putin, “but I understood what the president was trying to say.”

“Number one, the Republican Party is going to rally around the idea that Putin is a thug and a crook,” Graham said in an interview. “I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of Republican senators see what’s happening to Ukraine is detrimental to our national security and well-being.”