V.P. Wannabe Tom Cotton Defends Trump “Rewarding Putin”
Donald Trump appears to have an unconventional idea about how to handle the Russia-Ukraine conflict—and his allies don’t seem to have a good explanation for it.
When pressed for details on Sunday, Trump vice presidential hopeful Senator Tom Cotton explained to Fox News that Trump would likely allow Russia to claim parts of Ukraine.
“There are reports that what President Trump plans to do to end that conflict is to potentially push Ukraine to give up Crimea, parts of Donbas,” host Shannon Bream said. “If that is the plan, do you agree with that strategy? And would that be rewarding [Vladimir] Putin in order to wrap this thing up in the way that he intended to start it—and take some of that territory? Is that just giving him what he wanted?”
Such a plan would effectively reverse President Joe Biden’s policy and lose any wins that Ukraine has had in its year-and-a-half war against its superpower neighbor. But despite the plan’s shocking intentions, Cotton still didn’t deny its details.
“President Trump and his campaign have said that any reports of plans like that are not authorized, and they’re not coming from the president himself,” Cotton said. “Furthermore, President Trump has said that he strongly supports Ukraine’s strength and survival. He had a strong relationship when he was in office with President Zelenskiy.”
Cotton seemed to conveniently forget that Trump’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy consisted mainly of withholding military aid to try to get the Eastern European nation to dig up dirt on Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Trump was impeached (the first time) for his demand.
Trump’s new whole plan is awfully similar to an idea previously pitched by biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy. In August, the former GOP presidential candidate told CNN that the only way to break up the Russia-China alliance would be to give the Slavic nation what it wants. But even then, the plan was pitched on the false premise that the U.S. has any say in how a foreign nation divvied up its land.
During a meeting with the Ukrainian leader on Friday, Biden actually apologized for the delayed aid package, blaming its late arrival on some contentious conservative members of Congress—and possibly on Cotton, who was one of 29 Republicans to vote against the $95.3 billion foreign aid package in February. But the Arkansas lawmaker couldn’t square that when asked about it by Bream.
“Well, Shannon, he should only be pointing the finger at himself,” Cotton said of Biden. “For more than two years, Joe Biden pussyfooted around and didn’t give Ukraine the weapons it needed to defend itself.”
