Republicans duck Trump’s claims that Ukraine should have surrendered to Russia
Republicans duck Trump’s claims that Ukraine should have surrendered to Russia
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‘I hadn’t heard that,’ one Republican insisted about Trump’s claims in Hannity interview. Republican Senators ducked answering questions about Donald Trump’s claim that Ukraine should have surrendered to Russia and his attempt to blame the bloody conflict on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
![[Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas faulted Joe Biden rather than Zelensky for the start of the war in Ukraine.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/15/21/Trump_Cabinet_Bondi_65483.jpg)
The president spoke to Fox News host Sean Hannity this week and blamed Zelensky’s failure to preemptively capitulate to Russia invading Ukraine, even though Russian forces have occupied parts of the country since 2014. “Zelensky was fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful,” Trump told Hannity. “He shouldn’t have done that, because we could have made a deal, and it would have been a deal that would have been, it would have been a nothing deal.”.
But Republican senators dodged commenting on Trump’s remarks about the war that began when Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked his neighbor. “I hadn’t heard that,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming told The Independent. “I’m not exactly sure what he was--what you’re referring to.”.
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has been a splitting point between Trump and the more hawkish Republican Senate conference. Last year, Trump blew up a deal to swap additional provisions for border security in exchange for aid to Israel and Ukraine. Aid to Ukraine ultimately passed without additional border security spending.
Trump’s phone call to Zelensky in 2019 where he asked for Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, then his campaign opponent, in exchange for aid to Ukraine triggered Trump’s first impeachment, for which he was acquitted. During that impeachment trial, some Republicans peddled the idea that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
