Trump’s All-In for Putin

by Bill Kristol

In for a kopek, in for a ruble. That seems to be Donald Trump’s modus operandi. Only a week after his phone call with Russia’s leader, Trump’s gone all-in on a pro–Vladimir Putin foreign policy.

He’s now mocking Ukraine for not having fought valiantly to defend itself for three years, and he’s attacking its elected leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a dictator. His vice president and national security adviser are portraying Zelensky as the obstacle to peace. His administration is embracing Putin’s demand that Ukraine, contrary to what its constitution envisions in a time of martial law, hold elections before direct Russia-Ukrainian negotiations can begin—a transparent negotiating ploy that allows Russia to stall for time to see if Ukrainian demoralization might set in on the battlefield.

All of this is a prelude to blaming Zelensky for the failure to attain a negotiated peace, and to abandoning Ukraine.

Trump is also preparing to throw our European allies, many of whom want to stand with Ukraine, under the bus. Thus his administration has expressed a willingness to entertain the long-standing Russian demand that the U.S. remove troops from the frontline NATO countries most threatened by Russia. Such a move would effectively mark the end of NATO, which Trump, once again following Putin’s lead, would presumably welcome.

And yesterday Trump ordered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to prepare massive cuts in the defense budget, cuts that will damage us across the board but also—as I’m told by someone familiar with the proposal—that are particularly targeted on weakening our commitment to Europe. There are also reports that Hegseth is about to embark on a purge of top military officers in order to install Trump loyalists in key posts at the Pentagon, so there will be no pushback to our new, pro-Putin foreign policy.

Unsurprisingly, Putin and his allies are happy.

“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated in response to Trump’s attack on Zelensky. “Trump is 200 percent right.”

Two-hundred percent? Putin expressed his pleasure in more measured tones: “Trump started receiving real information, and it changed his approach.”

One shouldn’t be surprised, at this point, to see Trump bend over backwards for Putin. But surely all those hawkish Republicans on the Hill, many of whom criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough to help Ukraine, would be moved to speak out in protest?

Surely you jest.

The New York Times headline summarized the situation well: “As Trump Turns Toward Russia and Against Ukraine, Republicans Are Mum.” The subhead read: “Congressional Republicans have mostly tempered their criticism or deferred to the president as he topples what were once their party’s core foreign policy principles.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), defended the silence of his fellow Republican lambs: “Right now, you have got to give him some space.”

In other words: Don’t look to us to speak up. And, presumably, don’t look to us to support further aid to Ukraine in a new government funding bill in March. Of course, if a new funding bill passes without such aid, that would further weaken Ukraine on the battlefield, which would give Trump more space to effectuate Putin’s wishes.

You have to go abroad to find a conservative politician willing to tell the truth about what Trump is up to. Chris Patten, former chairman of the British Conservative Party, said the following to the Times’s Nick Kristof:

We have Trump and his oligarchy of ignorant shoe shiners vandalizing the network of organizations, agreements and values—largely put in place by America since the Second World War—which have given most of us, including America, on the whole an extraordinary degree of peace and prosperity. . . . I love America and was once happy to regard its president as leader of the free world. Not any longer. Where are the American values that I used to admire?

“Where are the American values that I used to admire?”

A fair question.