As Russia ready to strike Ukraine and the United States rushed to defend neighboring allies in Europe, former President Donald J. Trump had nothing however admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
He is “pretty smart,” Mr. Trump stated on Wednesday at a Florida fund-raiser, assessing the approaching invasion like an actual property deal. “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” he stated, “taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”
Historians referred to as the remarks unprecedented. “The idea that a former president would praise the man or leadership who American troops are even now traveling to confront and contain,” stated Jeffrey Engel, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, “is astounding.”
Yet Republican leaders, whereas condemning the invasion of Ukraine, stayed silent concerning the ex-president’s repeated reward this week for Mr. Putin, at the same time as some Trump’ allies — from former administration figures to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson — amplified his Russian-friendly views to the celebration’s core.
Foreign coverage specialists and Russia students stated the obvious sympathy or ambivalence towards Moscow from parts of the correct raised questions concerning the affect Mr. Trump continues to exert over candidates looking for to faucet into his base, the legacy of a decade-old effort by the Kremlin to court docket American conservatives and the way forward for the G.O.P. amid a backlash in opposition to the Republican-led entanglements in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Cold War-era Republicans, historians stated, would have repudiated feedback like Mr. Trump’s as un-American. Anders Stephanson, a historian of international coverage at Columbia University, recalled an earlier Russian invasion. “Could one imagine Dwight Eisenhower praising Leonid Brezshnev for invading Czechoslovakia in 1968?” he requested in an electronic mail. “I think not.”
Republican congressional leaders on Thursday stayed distant from the Putin-friendly views that had been emanating from the previous president. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican chief, denounced Mr. Putin at size and urged the Biden administration to supply army help to assist the Ukrainians struggle again. Asked at a information convention in Louisville about Mr. Trump’s feedback, the senator responded with silence.
How Donald J. Trump Still Looms
As the specter of a Russian invasion rose, Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state and C.I.A. chief below Mr. Trump, and now a possible presidential aspirant, appeared to take an identical line to his former boss. Mr. Putin was “an elegantly sophisticated counterpart” and “very shrewd,” Mr. Pompeo stated.
But because the Russian onslaught neared, Mr. Pompeo on Wednesday certified these views. Mr. Putin was additionally “evil” and “should be crushed,” he advised The Des Moines Register on a go to to Iowa.
Other Republicans throughout the nation who’re closest to the celebration’s base — House members and first candidates — have typically sought to deflect questions on their stance on Ukraine with solutions that keep away from breaking with Mr. Trump or agreeing with President Biden. A refrain of Republicans are arguing that the White House is worrying extra a couple of distant battle than about unlawful immigration.
“Why does Joe Biden care more about Ukraine’s border than the U.S. southern border?” the official Twitter account of the Republican minority of the House Judiciary Committee declared on Wednesday.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, final week took a step towards the Trump-supporting base and away from the Republican management, arguing that NATO ought to placate Russia by refraining from increasing membership to Ukraine.
“My view is that China is our number one security and economic threat,” Mr. Hawley stated in an interview final week. “This is what leads me to being very skeptical of an expansion. I don’t think we can afford, in both the literal and colloquial uses of that term, to expand our security commitments in Europe.”
But on Thursday, Mr. Hawley joined the management in urging Mr. Biden to ship Ukraine army gear and “sanction Russian energy production to a halt.”
The former president’s allies within the conservative media, in the meantime, have carried his reward for Mr. Putin right into a extra totally shaped argument in opposition to opposing the invasion of Ukraine. Tucker Carlson has echoed Kremlin speaking factors so intently that his sound bites have develop into a staple of Russian state tv.
Mr. Carlson, a onetime hawk who turned in opposition to American adventurism within the wake of the Iraq warfare, has overtly questioned U.S. commitments to Ukraine since Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, when the previous president was stated to have withheld army help to Ukraine to stress officers there into investigating Mr. Biden and his household.
“What is this really about?” Mr. Carlson requested this week of the Biden administration’s condemnation of Russia. He answered himself with a sequence of questions inviting listeners to direct their anger at American liberals or at China as an alternative. “Has Putin ever called me a racist?” Mr. Carlson requested, including, “Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic?”
“No one on this show is rooting for Putin,” Mr. Carlson sought to make clear on Wednesday, “or rooting for the Ukrainians for that matter.”
“We are always rooting for peace,” he insisted.
Andrew S. Weiss, a Russia professional on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated the Kremlin had looked for a decade to win over allies on the American proper, partially by denouncing homosexual rights, emphasizing Russian assist for conservative social norms and alluring visits from outstanding evangelical figures like Franklin Graham.
“It’s worked beautifully,” Mr. Weiss stated.
Stephen Ok. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump who hosts a preferred conservative podcast, hinted this week on the success of these efforts. “Putin ain’t woke — he is anti-woke,” Mr. Bannon stated approvingly on Wednesday. He was interviewing Erik Prince, the non-public safety contractor and a member of a outstanding household of evangelical Christians and Republican donors, who joined Mr. Bannon in commending Russia for its opposition to transgender rights.
On Thursday, Mr. Bannon argued that Congress ought to impeach Mr. Biden for “instigating this war in Ukraine.”
“There is no appetite in Europe to defend themselves, OK?” Mr. Bannon stated. “Now you’ve gone in and stirred up a hornet’s nest.”
Hal Brands, a historian at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a resident scholar on the conservative American Enterprise Institute, in contrast the obvious sympathy for Russia amongst some on the correct to earlier durations when teams on the political fringes embraced international rivals as foils for home opponents.
During the years earlier than the United States entered World War II, for instance, a handful of lawmakers lauded Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini for his or her robust management. During the early years of the Cold War, he famous, some on the far left spoke approvingly of the Soviet Union as an alternative choice to unfettered capitalism.
“Russia is a stand-in for anti-wokeness,” he stated.
But the present “fascination with Putin” amongst some on the correct, he added, “is also wrapped up in the post-Trump sweepstakes.”
“You see a lot of emulation going on among politicians who may or may not be authentically Trumpian but nonetheless want to claim that part of the party’s base for their own political ambitions.”
Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting.
