This week, traditional Republicans criticized the Trump administration for supporting Russia at the U.N. regarding the Ukraine war, contrasting with most G.O.P. members who ignored this shift. Representative Don Bacon expressed disapproval on social media, highlighting American values of freedom against aggression. The U.S. voted against a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion and instead passed a peace resolution without criticizing Russia, which allies like Britain and France abstained from. Senators John Curtis and Mitch McConnell condemned this stance, viewing it as a departure from U.S. ideals, while Senator Bill Cassidy referenced historical crimes of aggression to underscore their concerns.
A faction of traditional Republicans in Congress sharply criticized the Trump administration this week for aligning with Russia at the United Nations regarding the war in Ukraine, even as the majority of the G.O.P. ignored the United States’ unexpected rapprochement with a long-standing adversary.
“The Trump Administration made a significant error today concerning Ukraine,” Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, expressed on social media Monday night. “Most Americans advocate for independence, freedom, and free markets, opposing the bully and invader.”
The criticism from Mr. Bacon and others followed the U.S. vote against a U.N. General Assembly resolution initiated by Ukraine that condemned Russia for invading Ukrainian territory, demanding a withdrawal and accountability for war crimes. Shortly after, the U.S. managed to pass a U.N. Security Council resolution urging peace in Ukraine that did not rebuke Russia. Key allies like Britain and France chose to abstain.
“This stance represents a significant departure from American principles of freedom and democracy,” Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, stated on social media Monday night, expressing that he was “deeply troubled by the vote,” which effectively placed the U.S. alongside Russia and North Korea.
The Russian delegate to the United Nations praised the U.S. action, claiming that the new position provided Moscow with “a certain optimism” regarding European security’s future.
The stance taken by the Trump administration would have been unthinkable in recent years, a period marked by U.S. arms shipments to aid Ukrainian forces in repelling Russia’s invasion, along with financial support for the war-devastated country’s civilian infrastructure. Even many Republicans, who were critical of the tens of billions in aid approved for Ukraine, maintained that Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, were the true aggressors in the conflict.
However, as President Trump actively pursues warmer relations with Moscow — a shift that has included calling Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator” and implying that Ukraine instigated the war — few Republicans in Congress have spoken out against this change.
Even some of those who criticized Mr. Trump for his administration’s alignment with Russia at the U.N. this week refrained from mentioning the president or his advisors directly.
“Ignoring Russia as the unmistakable and unprovoked aggressor is not just an unseemly moral equivalence — it demonstrates a significant misunderstanding of the essence of negotiations and leverage,” Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, noted in a statement on Monday. He partially blamed the Biden administration for the current predicament involving Mr. Trump, asserting that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s “shameful hesitation and half-measures risk leading to something even more disgraceful: the stubborn denial of America’s security interest in Ukraine’s success.”
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, quoted a judge from the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, where an international military tribunal held Nazi officials accountable after World War II, to voice his disapproval of the Trump administration’s U.N. votes.
“To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the highest international crime differing from other war crimes only in that it encompasses the accumulated evil of the whole,” he stated on social media.