Russia may be bogged down in its ruthless assault on Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin is sweeping the Republican presidential primary.
Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it clear that if they win the nomination, Ukraine’s lifeline of US weapons and ammunition would be jeopardized, and the war could end on Putin’s terms. Their positions reflect growing opposition to the war and President Joe Biden’s mobilization of the West to support Kyiv’s resistance to Putin’s unprovoked invasion.
“Death and destruction must stop right now!” Trump responded to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson’s questionnaire about the war and US involvement. Responding to the same questions, DeSantis gave his most unequivocal signal yet that if he wins the presidency, he will reduce US aid to Ukraine. “We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over homeland defense,” he wrote.
Trump’s warnings that only he can prevent World War III, and DeSantis’ main argument that saving Ukraine is not a core US national security interest, are likely to gain traction in the aftermath of one of the war’s most tense moments on Tuesday. The apparent downing of a US drone over the Black Sea by a Russian fighter jet brought us one step closer to the scenario that everyone has feared since the war began a year ago: a direct clash between US and Russian forces.
“This incident should serve as a wake-up call to isolationists in the United States that it is in our national interest to treat Putin as the threat he truly is,” Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said in an implicit rebuke of his party’s leading presidential candidates in a statement released Tuesday. Others, such as Texas Senator John Cornyn, have questioned DeSantis’ position.
However, the criticism leveled by some senior Senate Republicans may be insignificant in today’s GOP. As they compete to outdo each other’s skepticism of Western assistance for Ukraine, Trump and DeSantis demonstrate how “America First” Republicans have transformed a party that was led to victory over the Soviet Union by President Ronald Reagan in the Cold War. Their influence is certain to exacerbate the schism in the US House between traditional GOP hawks and supporters of the ex-president, which is already jeopardizing future aid to Ukraine – even before the presidential election in 2024.
That schism is being reflected in early GOP primary debates, with other candidates, including former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, warning that failing to stop Putin now could lead to disastrous confrontations later. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Haley took a far more hawkish stance on Ukraine. The former governor of South Carolina warned that Russia’s goal was to wipe Ukraine off the map, and that if Kiev “stopped fighting, Ukraine would no longer exist, and other countries would legitimately fear they would be next.”
However, her position may help explain why she is trailing in early polls. According to a new CNN/SSRS poll released on Tuesday, 80% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents believe it is critical that the Republican nominee for president believes the US “should not be involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine.”
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