Russia’s invasion of Ukraine divides the republican at the CPAC meeting in the USA.
Republican lawmakers and candidates are largely united in their belief that President Biden’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fallen short.
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference became a venue this week for top Republicans to set themselves apart from each other and from Trump as they sharply condemned Putin and his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Biden administration’s efforts to hold Russia accountable for launching an unprovoked attack on its neighbors have made the insiders give a green light to characterize Russia’s aggression as a reaction to weakness on the part of Mr. Biden.
On Hannity’s program this week, one could hear former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee describing Putin as “a former KGB full-blown communist” and Hannity lambasting President Biden for failing to deter aggression from “the hostile regime in Russia.”
Ted Cruz, Texas senator, a top Republican, said the Russian invasion had come to pass because Mr. Biden and his advisers prioritized partisan politics over substance.
As he arrived to speak at CPAC, Mr. Cruz, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the attack, which ended nearly eight decades of peace on the continent, was caused by the mistakes of the Biden administration.
On Carlson’s show, viewers were asked to ponder if Putin was so bad. Carlson asked: “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? … Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs? Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that.”
Mike Pompeo, Former Secretary of State, took a less laudatory approach tweeting, “Vladimir Putin is the aggressor.
The Ukrainians are the victims.” But in television interviews and on Twitter, Pompeo has argued that Trump’s approach to Russia was successful saying: “Vladimir Putin is the same person he was during our administration.
The only thing that has changed is American leadership.”
On Capitol Hill, Republicans have taken a more hawkish approach and pushed Biden to issue tough sanctions. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Senator, has criticized the administration for wanting to impose sanctions until after Russia invaded Ukraine. Cotton tweeted earlier this week: “There is not a minute to lose”, the mainstream Republican criticism of Biden is that he didn’t intimidate Putin into backing off.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York said in a statement in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion: “Our adversaries around the world have been assessing and measuring Joe Biden’s leadership on the world stage, and he has abysmally failed on every metric.”
Meanwhile, Trump spoke warmly of Putin and echoed the former Russian spy’s claim rather than the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community that his country had not interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.
Congress passed sweeping sanctions against Russia with bipartisan veto-proof majorities, leading Trump to sign the bill despite expressing opposition to it. The Trump administration also sold advanced weapons to Ukraine.
In a YouGov poll released late last month, 62 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said Putin is “a stronger leader” than Biden.
Democrats and liberals are comparatively united in their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While the most dovish Democrats are found on the party’s left-wing, Putin’s record of human rights abuses and the illegality of his invasion under international law led progressive Senator Bernie Sanders to condemn Russia’s moves and support the Biden administration’s economic sanctions of Russia.
Douglas Allen Collins, retired politician and a member of the Republican Party said: “We didn’t have to send troops we’re not involved but why were we waiting to see if Putin was gonna go? I’m in the military for 20 years, you don’t put that many people on the border without either moving them or … calling a truce. We didn’t even attempt that. And I think that’s the part that frustrates me the most.”