Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) in a statement on the Senate floor marking the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine accused President Trump of “siding” with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the United States’s traditional NATO allies.
“Today on this third anniversary of Putin’s war, Donald Trump is turning his back on the values that America stands for, of democracy, of security, and of liberty,” Schumer said. “Instead of standing up to Putin, Donald Trump is siding with him and against our own allies.”
Schumer argued that the United States has “been clear” on where it stands on who provoked the war and has “stood on the side” of democracy, the inviolability of border and freedom.
He noted the Senate a year ago passed $61 billion in assistance to Ukraine and argued that Trump is now breaking from that bipartisan view in a major way.
“Instead of condemning Putin’s lies, Donald Trump is parroting Russian misinformation and propaganda, in defiance of all evidence, without regard to any facts, and with utter contempt for the truth,” he said.
Schumer made his comments after Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator without elections.”
Over the weekend, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refused to say Russia started the war, telling “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream “it’s a very complicated situation.”
Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz in an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo dodged a question about whether Russia is the aggressor by praising Trump as the “dealmaker in chief.”
Schumer urged Trump to follow the advice of French President Emmanuel Macron, who appeared with Trump at the White House Monday to discuss peace negotiations.
“President Macron is advising Donald Trump not to show weakness – not to show weakness – to Putin at this pivotal moment,” he said.
“For Donald Trump to show weakness to Putin today is to endanger America’s security tomorrow,” he added. “If history tells us one thing about autocrats, it’s that their hunger is never satiated. It’s never enough. They will keep going one way or another until they are halted.”
Schumer delivered his floor remarks after former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) issued a statement condemning Putin for provoking the war and suggesting that Trump — without naming him — has a “gross misunderstanding” of the Ukraine talks.
“Refusing to acknowledge Russia as the undeniable and unprovoked aggressor is more than an unseemly moral equivalency — it reflects a gross misunderstanding of the nature of negotiations and leverage,” McConnell said in a statement marking the war’s three-year mark.
McConnell said the “human catastrophe” in Ukraine “rests solely on Vladimir Putin” and predicted that if Ukrainian forces laid down their arms, “Putin’s aims would not stop with Kyiv.”
“Mistaking this fact is as embarrassing as it is costly,” he warned.
