Jan. and Feb. 2022
In the lead-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Republicans were asking why they should care and serve as American apologists for Putin.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) spoke out in early Feb. demanding President Joe Biden not send more troops into Europe and said that Ukraine needs to stay the away from NATO.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asked why the US should be "footing the bill for Ukraine."
J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, has spent multiple episodes with Steve Bannon complaining about Ukraine and saying he "doesn't really care about what happens." Instead, he doesn't understand why there isn't a greater focus on the US-Mexico border.
Former President Donald Trump was promoting Putin's actions, saying that his invasion was "savvy" and he is a "genius."
Avlon: GOP distrusting Russia was a constant. All that changed with Trump
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In a previous statement, Trump claimed: "This would not have happened during my administration. It wouldn't have taken place and it wouldn't have taken place right now."
Speeches at CPAC made it even more evident that Republicans were more interested in bashing Biden than helping Ukraine.
Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House, has tried to find a way to blame Biden for Putin's behavior. This became another narrative for the GOP. Somehow if Donald Trump was president, this would never have happened.
"After just one year of a weak, feckless, and unfit President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief, the world is less safe," Stefanik said of Biden. "Rather than peace through strength, we are witnessing Joe Biden's foreign policy of war through weakness. For the past year, our adversaries around the world have been assessing and measuring Joe Biden's leadership on the world stage, and he has abysmally failed on every metric. From kinetic and deadly attacks on our allies and partners, to the catastrophic withdrawal and surrender in Afghanistan, to the cyber attacks impeding American industry and infrastructure, to today's Russian invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden and his Administration have failed America and the world."
2021
Historically, Republicans don't have a good track record on Ukraine since Trump joined their party. Putin amassed soldiers on the border, claiming that it was all for a training mission when the truth was he was prepping for an invasion. Republicans began their attacks on Biden saying he was too soft to handle Putin.
2020
The year was a difficult one, but Ukraine still needed help. Congress worked to pass military weapons sales to Ukraine. A whopping 52 Republicans voted against it. The move came as Trump's first impeachment finished.
2019
Trump tried to bribe Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden or he wouldn't send the next round of military equipment. In the now-infamous call, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky made the ask, and Trump replied asking if they could do him a favor first.
Former President Donald Trump promoted Russian propaganda in 2019, falsely claiming that it was Ukraine, not Russia that intervene in the 2016 election. The lie was contrary to the assessments reported by the entire international intelligence community. However, it was exactly what Putin was saying.
Whistleblower reports were filed, and Trump fired anyone who was trying to tell the truth about Putin and 2016, like expert Fiona Hill.
Fiona Hill’s most striking impeachment testimony moments
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"Republicans’ promotion of Trump’s Ukraine conspiracy theory is the latest example of their capitulation to him and of the GOP’s rapid transformation on Russia — from a party that for decades celebrated its hawkish stance toward the Kremlin to one that is reluctant to take a hard line and risk Trump’s wrath," the Washington Post reported at the time. "For some seasoned Republican foreign policy voices, the GOP’s refusal to back away from Trump’s position on supposed interference by Ukraine risks erasing values forged in the Cold War and defined for a generation by President Ronald Reagan’s prescient call for the Berlin Wall to come down."
As it turns out, Rudy Giuliani was staked out in Ukraine trying to dig up dirt on Biden. Giuliani and Gordon Sondland "side-stepped the proper process for accessing Trump on Ukraine issues," NBC News reported. They also sought to circumvent John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser. He refused to come forward with his most incendiary information during the investigation, instead preferring to publish it in his tell-all book.
"Text messages released by Congress showed Sondland, Giuliani and former U.S. envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker working to facilitate Trump’s goal of getting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to commit to investigate the president’s political opponents including former Vice President Joe Biden — and making a White House visit for Zelenskiy contingent on such a commitment," NBC News recalled. "Official notes from Trump’s call with Zelenskiy released by the White House showed Trump asking the Ukrainians to work directly with Giuliani."Sondland was also in direct contact with Trump about Ukraine, it was ultimately revealed.
When faced with the investigation, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) explained, “It is not difficult to defend this president, because this president did nothing that’s impeachable. Nothing on that phone call was wrong. That was a case that has already been opened. The attorney general was already looking into it. If somebody is an elected official, and they did something wrong, but they run for another office, somehow what they did is not wrong anymore?”
2018
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was spending the American Independence Day holiday in Moscow with other Republicans. When they returned, the Daily Beast explained that they started shrugging off Russia.
“I think the sanctions are hurting them badly both in terms of their pocketbooks and in terms of their status in the world,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who joined the congressional delegation last week, said in an interview. “I don’t want to over-state this, but these were very tense meetings.”
Kennedy then revealed that Russian leaders seemed to believe that Democrats hated them because of the 2016 election meddling.
That was also the year that Trump said publicly that he didn't think that Russia had anything to do with the 2016 election.
“My people came to me, [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me and some others saying they think it's Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said, while standing next to Putin. “I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
2014
In this year, Putin invaded Crimea. Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn was working to build relationships with Russia instead.
"After his return from Moscow, Flynn continued to maintain a relationship with Igor Sergun, the GRU Director," recalled writer Aaron Harris. "When his proposed follow-up visit was denied, he went so far as to arrange for Sergun to visit Flynn in the United States. That visit was scheduled for February 28, 2014. But this day was not fated to go as planned for the United States—and certainly not for Ukraine. That was the day the Russians set up checkpoints at Armyansk and Chongar, the two major road crossings from Ukraine proper to the Crimean peninsula. So it appears that, while our DIA Director (responsible for knowing what our adversaries are doing) was developing a collegial relationship with Russian Military Intelligence, and bonding with his Russian counterparts over what he believed was a shared passion for fighting terrorism, Moscow was planning its invasion of Crimea. And the Kremlin had planned their first openly hostile action to occur on the very day that Flynn believed he was to have a collegial meeting with Director Sergun."
Back then, Republicans were still demanding that more be done to help Ukraine and fight back against Putin. It was short-lived.
“I’m not hearing discussed here today what is going to change Putin’s calculus,” demanded Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). “The economic approach is going to fail. When the economic approach fails, then what do we do? Are we ever going to consider providing even small arms?”
