Back when he served in Congress, Washington used to call Dana Rohrabacher “Vladimir Putin’s favorite congressman.” Kevin McCarthy once said that Putin paid Trump.
Rohrabacher never particularly liked that, given he worked for Ronald Reagan.
“Well, when I was a member of Congress. I killed Russians myself at the Battle of Jalalabad,” he told The Independent about when Russia invaded Afghanistan. Rohrabacher was roaming the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) just outside of Washington, D.C. He said that in the past, communists led Russia, but now gangsters like Putin lead it.
“You can deal with gangsters, yeah, we can't deal with people who are dedicated Marxist-Leninists who want to destroy your society,” he said.
But back when he served in Congress, Rohrabacher was considered an outlier. But with Trump’s return to Washington, conservatives all essentially agreed with Trump’s remarks criticizing Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky.
On stage, on the second day at CPAC, Trump administration officials echoed the president’s sentiments criticizing Zelensky and defending the decision to negotiate directly with Russia. Ric Grenell, Trump’s special envoy for special missions of the United States, said that Trump has met with Zelensky repeatedly.
“Let’s say we’re up to 10 times meeting with the Ukrainians,” he said. “I never once heard from the media an outrage that the Russians were not invited to those talks.”
When Politico’s Dasha Burns questioned Grenell onstage about Trump’s recent attacks and claims that Zelensky “shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen.” Grenell responded by criticizing the Ukrainian president.
“I think the American people are really frustrated with Zelensky,” Grenell said. “I think there’s a big frustration that he’s not making great choices for peace.”
In the same token, Michael Waltz, Trump’s National Security Adviser, defended Trump’s posturing on Russia and Ukraine, attacking Democrats who wanted a ceasefire in Gaza amid Israel’s war‘s with Hamas while supposedly not wanting an end to hostilities in Russia.
“But under his leadership, we're sitting — with our hosts, the Saudis — and talking to the Russians, understanding what they are going to need, and then understanding what the Ukrainians are going to need, talking to all of the Europeans,” he said.
And it was not just Trump’s national security team. CPAC has never been particularly friendly to Ukraine’s cause. In 2022, it took place in Florida just as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. But this year, a particular invective toward Ukraine seemed to pervade much of the discussions, talking about ending “forever wars.” Waltz even talked about Trump winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
During House Speaker Mike Johnson’s conversation with Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty on Thursday, when the prospect of providing more aid to Ukraine came up, boos resonated throughout the crowd.
“There’s no appetite for that,” he said. Last year, Johnson bucked many in his party when he passed an aid package to Ukraine, which prompted Democrats to save him from a motion to vacate filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But this time, he took a different tack.
“I think Zelensky complaining that he wasn’t invited to the first meeting with Saudi and Russia is misplaced,” Johnson said. “What Trump’s trying to do is do a level set, put the conditions in place for that real negotiation to happen and we’ve got to allow him to do what he does. Remember, he wrote The Art of the Deal, he knows what he’s doing.”
In the same token, Elon Musk, the Tesla and X executive in charge of Trump’s slash and burn government operation, spoke onstage – decked out in black MAGA hat and shades – saying the war needed to end.
“How many more years is this supposed to go on,” he told Fox News’s Rob Schmitt. “There’s a whole bunch of people dead in trenches for what? And I’ll tell you what for? It’s like for the biggest graft machine I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s for what.”
In the same respect, the contingent of pro-Ukraine Republicans continues to diminish. On Thursday, Mitch McConnell, the former Senate majority leader who has sought to make defending Ukraine his legacy item, announced he would not seek re-election.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s longtime adviser, touted the retirement that evening as a reason to celebrate.
