Bulwark Takes - GOP Hypocrisy: They Once Stood With Ukraine—Now They Bow to Trump

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and Nikki Haley, who once called Putin a ‘war criminal’ are now pushing Trump’s pro-Russia narrative. Their hypocrisy is STUNNING. Sarah Longwell breaks it all down.

Hey guys, Sarah Longwell here, publisher of The Bulwark. And I don't know if you've noticed, but the world has gone mad. Russia is the good guy, Ukraine is the bad guy. And I am just—I'm reeling from the way that Republicans used to talk about Ukraine to the way they are suddenly talking about Ukraine, and even worse, the way they're talking about Russia, as though Russia has not been this threat to America for many decades. And so I just, I want to start this by playing a clip for you of National Security Advisor Mike Walz at today's White House briefing. Watch this.

To follow up on Peter's question, you wrote in an op-ed in the fall of 2023 that, quote, Putin is to blame, certainly like Al-Qaeda was to blame for 9-11. Do you still feel that way now, or do you share the president's assessment as he says Ukraine is to blame for the start of this war? Well, it shouldn't surprise you that I share the president's assessment on all kinds of issues. What I wrote as a member of Congress was as a former member of Congress. Look, what I share the president's assessment on is that the war has to end. Alright, so this Wall's response is the tune we're going to be hearing more and more as Republicans who absolutely know better come to terms with the fact that their political allegiance to Trump means selling out Ukraine. Now, if you haven't been paying close attention, here's some background on this.

This week, Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of attacks against Ukrainian President Zelensky. He blamed Zelensky for starting the war in Ukraine. He called Zelensky a dictator. He called for elections to be held during the middle of a war, and excluded Ukraine from peace talks with Russia. Predictably, Trump has not shared a similar criticism of Russia or Putin because Trump—this is how you know.

This is how you know Trump doesn't think Zelensky is a dictator because if he did, he'd be sucking up to him because that's what Trump does with dictators. So, look, the Republicans I grew up with understood how important defending our allies is. It's just like what we were raised on as Republicans and young conservatives. But they've totally sold out their principles to appease Trump, which is obviously an old story. We've watched this over and over again. But what's weird, right, is that even in Trump's first term, you did see more of these Republicans. They would sort of like deal with Trump on the foreign policy stuff and they would still sound like normal Republicans.

And more—domestically they gave in to Trump, but you would still hear them be relatively—hockeysh isn't even the right word. They just—international affairs still matter to them. They didn't think Putin was a good guy. So I want to take a look at how Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, two of Trump's biggest sellouts, used to talk about Ukraine and then talk about their reactions

to Trump's more recent statements. Because as recently as 2022, Marco Rubio tweeted, "'The suffering in Ukraine because of the war criminal Putin is obvious to all.'" Yes, it is. "'But the dangers that lie ahead are far greater than most realize.'" because of the war criminal Putin is obvious to all. Yes, it is. But the dangers that lie ahead are far greater than most realize.

Yes, they were. Good job, old Marco. Like it was clear from the beginning of the war that Rubio knew Putin was a war criminal and that it was in the US's interests to support Ukraine in their fight against him. Even as far back as 2014, it was clear that Rubio understood

that Russia must face repercussions after they annexed Crimea. Let's watch some of that video from the old days. There's got to be a consequence for this action. This cannot be the new international norm that you simply can move troops into a neighboring country when you don't like the way things turn out. And in order to successfully be able to do that, we must use the influence of the United States to rally our partners in Europe and around the world to take concrete steps that continue to isolate Russia economically. There must be a price to pay for what they have done.

You see, so when it was Obama that they thought was being too soft on Russia, then Rubio, very butch on Russia, must be consequences, gotta do something about it. But this week, Secretary of State Rubio, he is now Secretary of State because he has totally sold out his soul to Donald Trump, he met with Russia and said that when the conflict comes to an end, it will provide opportunities for us to develop economic ties with Russia.

But ultimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort. And so that process will begin. And then the third is, together with those other two, is beginning to engage in identifying the extraordinary opportunities that exist should this conflict come to an acceptable end, the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically, on issues of common interest, and frankly, economically, on issues that hopefully will be good for the world

and will also improve our relations in the long term between these two important countries. You get that? So now we are partnering with Russia on economic things that might benefit us mutually. First of all, Marco Rubio in that clip, he looks like his soul has left his body. Like he has no idea how he found himself

saying these insane things at this insane table, at this insane moment in time, but that's not stopping him from saying them. He's perfectly happy to do it. And if you wanna see true delusion, Lindsey Graham is pretending that Trump is more pro-Ukraine than Biden at the same time Trump is actively selling out Ukraine.

He tweeted this, If history has taught us anything, it's that appeasing aggression gets you more aggression. That was Chamberlain to Hitler and Biden and Obama to Putin. I'm confident that President Trump will end the Ukraine war quickly and in a fashion that will deter future aggression. I'm sorry, what? How is it? How is giving Russia Ukraine going to deter future aggression? This is, I mean, pure delusion.

OK, and the thing about Lindsey Graham is that he's always been a strong supporter of Ukraine. That's how he wants to be seen, right? You remember this guy. He was John McCain's wingman. They cared about foreign affairs. They cared about peace through strength. But despite the support that he's always shown for Ukraine, he's done very little to push back on Trump's dangerous rhetoric in the past few weeks. He did criticize Trump for calling

Zelensky a dictator because that's an insane thing to say, but he does seem to be perfectly fine with Trump willingly giving land to Russia despite Graham's previous claims that that would never happen. Here's a clip from December of 2022, so, we're not talking that long ago, where he talks about how the war is going to end and how it's going to end with Putin on the outs and not getting any Ukrainian land. Let's listen. Here's the problem. There's no off ramp for this war.

Somebody's going to win and somebody's going to lose. How does this war end? When Russia breaks and they take Putin out, anything short of that, the war is going to continue. To ask the Ukrainians? When Russia breaks and they take Putin out, anything short of that, the war is going to continue. To ask the Ukrainians to give Russia part of their country after all this death and destruction is not going to happen. Not going to happen. And yet, Trump said last week that because Russia has fought for that land and lost lives doing so, they should keep that land. That seems to ignore the fact that Ukraine has also

fought hard for that land, also lost lives for that land, and also it's theirs, and Russia invaded them unprovoked, which is something in the United States of America we used to be against. So while Trump is doing everything he can to appease the aggressor in the war, Putin, and blaming the victim, Ukraine, Lindsey Graham continues to act as if Trump is going to give the Ukrainians a fair deal and that it was Biden and Obama who were appeasing the aggressors, not Trump.

But you know what? I wasn't happy with Obama back then. No Republican was. But today, all of them, because Donald Trump says so, the big orange king, they're fine. They're fine with it. they're all on board. All right, and look, obviously it's not just Rubio, it's not just Graham, it's almost all of Republicans, but I would be remiss if I left one person out, and that is Nikki Haley.

Because I just, I can't stop being so angry that this person who saw absolutely clearly what Donald Trump was planning to do, who he was planning on being when it came to selling out our friends and siding with our enemies, she said it. She said it when she was the last person standing against Trump in the Republican primary, when she was finally going hard at him. Here's what she said. And so as you look at the situation, what did Donald Trump say two weeks ago in South Carolina? He said that he would stand with Putin and encourage him to invade our allies. Think about that. Trump would side with a thug where half a million people have been wounded or killed because Putin invaded Ukraine.

Trump would side with a dictator who kills his political opponents. Trump would side with a tyrant who arrests American journalists and holds them hostage. Trump's going to side with a madman who's made no bones about the fact he wants to destroy America. And he's going to side with him over the allies that stood with us after 9-11? We all know what she did next. She endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States,

knowing full well that he was very likely to side with Putin over America's allies. Rubio, Graham, Haley, they were all once part of a Republican Party that understood that you stand up to your enemies and you protect your friends. But not now. Now we're going to abandon our friends and we're going to side with murderous dictators who don't hold real elections, I guess. So I hope the death of millions of Ukrainians

and the erasure of their national sovereignty was worth it, guys. Because that's what you did.