Friday, March 29

Trump’s Praise for ‘Savvy’ Putin Showcases Party Divide at CPAC


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(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin as “very savvy” shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine shocked many Americans and put the Republican Party in an uncomfortable position. But what was perhaps more telling is how many conservatives mimicked the former president’s assessment.

As Trump takes center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, his unbridled and open admiration for a man increasingly seen as an international pariah is problematic for the GOP as it heads into midterm elections and wants to present a united front. It exposes Trump’s enduring grip on a party that still can’t reconcile its populist leanings with its more traditional hawkish stance on foreign policy.

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Some at the right-wing jamboree in Orlando, Florida, enthusiastically support his unorthodox view of Putin while blaming the invasion on President Joe Biden for being “weak.” Others simply won’t express an opinion on what Trump says about the Russian leader.

The conservative establishment has largely pursued the expected course of action in calling for strong sanctions and support for Ukraine. The divergence of views leaves the party in a bind as to how it will attack Biden in the biggest test of his presidency.

Among the more surprising statements was that by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a usually reliable Trump ally, who clearly saw the potential backlash for praising Putin. He called the invasion of Ukraine “reckless and evil,” and said Putin should be “held accountable .” He was also restrained in his criticism of Biden’s approach.

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The four-day CPAC gathering has been billed as the “starting gun” for the November elections in which Republicans are positioned to gain control of at least one chamber of Congress and give themselves a head start for 2024. Trump has made a series of endorsements seeking to retain his influence on the GOP as he teases about another presidential run.

The rift between those who want to move on from the Trump era and those who see the former president as the key to victory was starkly revealed when the Republican National Committee earlier this month labeled the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol” legitimate political discourse.” Under withering criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, the committee tried to step away from that statement, saying it referred to peaceful demonstrators, not the rioters.

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The RNC also censured two Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for serving on the committee investigating the Capitol assault.

The annual CPAC gathering also comes as Republicans weigh whether Trump’s singular focus on his own grievances, including his 2020 election defeat, the treatment of his supporters who stormed the Capitol and the investigations into his business practices, will blunt the party’s advantage in the midterms.

“Americans aren’t looking backward, they are looking ahead, and they will punish people who are looking backward,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who’s convinced the party will retake both the House and Senate unless Trump depresses GOP turnout.

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In 2019, Trump was impeached for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate Biden and his family, particularly his son Hunter who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, in exchange for releasing security aid.

Trump was acquitted in a Senate trial.

And at a 2018 summit meeting in Finland, Trump said he believed Putin when the Russian leader contradicted the US intelligence assessments that his country had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

On Monday, as Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Joni Ernst of Iowa, issued a statement calling Putin a “dictator” and promised to cooperate on legislation to support NATO allies and Ukraine.

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‘Pretty Savvy’

Trump took a different tack.

“Here’s a guy that says, you know, I’m going to declare a big portion of Ukraine independent — he used the word independent — and we’re going to go out and we’re going to go in and we’re going to help keep peace,” Trump said of Putin on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio program on Tuesday. “You got to say, that’s pretty savvy.”

Trump also has compared unfavorably what he considers Biden’s lack of force on the US southern border to the massive invasion force Putin has assembled against Ukraine.

But some who had echoed Trump’s earlier praise of Putin began to dial it back, even to the receptive audience at CPAC. Former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, used his CPAC address on Friday to retreat from effusive comments he made about Putin in a Feb. 18 C-SPAN interview.

“We’ve seen a Russian dictator now terrorize the Ukrainian people because America didn’t demonstrate the resolve that we did for the four years prior,” Pompeo said Friday at CPAC.

A week ago, he called Putin “very shrewd, very capable,” and said that he has “enormous respect for him.”

©2022 Bloomberg LP

Bloomberg.com

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