Republicans follow Trump’s lead of icing out Zelensky

By Kate Sullivan, Annie Grayer and Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized Volodymyr Zelensky and claimed the Ukrainian president “refuses to make a deal” amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, marking Trump’s most explicit criticism of Zelensky’s handling of the war to date. 

“Those cities are gone, they’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt,” Trump said during a campaign speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina.

The comments come at the same time as a rising furor on Capitol Hill over the Ukrainian president among Republicans. In the House, GOP lawmakers are attempting to investigate what US taxpayer resources went toward supporting Zelensky’s security as he traveled to Pennsylvania while GOP senators are warning the Ukrainian to stay out of American politics after he called Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, “too radical” in an interview that published over the weekend.

The latest line of Republican attacks speaks to the broader political divisions over US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war. Republican leaders are so far declining to meet Zelensky while he is in Washington, DC, while Democrats are embracing the opportunity. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are not currently scheduled to meet with the Ukrainian president, sources told CNN, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to have meetings.

It all amounts to a stark warning for the Ukrainian president, who has relied heavily on American support to fight off Russia’s invasion since it began in February 2022. While Zelensky has had strong backing from the Biden administration, Republican support for the continued funding of Ukraine’s defense has been eroding for months and now appears to be picking up speed.

In New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Zelensky warned world leaders of serious attacks coming on his country, saying the Russians are set to go after Ukraine’s energy supplies – including nuclear power plants.

“Ukrainians will never accept why anyone in the world believes that such a brutal colonial past – which suits no one today – can be imposed on Ukraine now, instead of a normal, peaceful life,” he said, asking for “support from all nations of the world” in securing peace for Ukraine.

Trump appeared unmoved.

“Every time he came to our country, he’d walk away with $60 billion. He’s probably the greatest salesman on Earth,” Trump said of Zelensky on Wednesday.

Trump says Ukraine should have given up territory to stop the war earlier

In his speech, Trump blamed Biden and Harris for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and claimed they “caused this situation by the stupidity of what they said, by every move they make, but they caused the situation and now they’re locked in.”

“They just don’t know what to do. They’re locked into a situation. It’s sad, they just don’t know what to do. Because Ukraine is gone, it’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns, and you can never replace the dead people, so many dead people,” Trump said.

He said making a deal earlier in the conflict to cede some territory to the Russians would have prevented more catastrophe. Trump argued Biden should have been able to orchestrate a deal between Russia and Ukraine that avoided any bloodshed and argued that even a “bad deal” and one where Ukraine had “given up a little bit,” would’ve been preferable to the war.

“A deal could have been made. There wouldn’t have been one person that died, and there wouldn’t have been one golden tower laying shattered on its side. A deal could have been made if we had a competent President,” Trump said.

But Trump argued the opportunity to make a deal no longer existed because of the destruction Putin’s war in Ukraine had caused. 

“What deal can we make? What deal can we make? The, it’s, it’s demolished. The people are dead. The country is in rubble. And who are these people that allowed this to happen? Who are these people?”

When asked Wednesday on a call with reporters if he believes Ukraine should cede land in exchange for ending the war, Vance said “everything is going to be on the table,” but “nothing is going to be definitely on the table.”

“That’s why you have a negotiation, especially with a guy who’s as skilled as Donald Trump, is because he actually should try to have a conversation between both parties and other interested parties about how to bring this war to close,” Vance said on a call with reporters.

“As he said repeatedly, the killing has to stop,” Vance added. “It’s not an America’s interest. I don’t think it’s in Ukraine or Europe’s best interest for this thing to go on indefinitely.”

Vance said the “biggest problem” is how the war has “distracted and consumed a lot of resources at a time when Americans are suffering.”

Vance gave a glimpse at how a Trump-Vance administration would work to end the war, telling the Shawn Ryan podcast that he believes it could involve a “demilitarized zone” at the “current line of demarcation.”

House Republicans attack Zelensky

House Republicans launched a new line of attack against Zelensky on Wednesday, criticizing his recent visit to a Pennsylvania ammunition plant ahead of key meetings with Biden and other allies as part of his weeklong push in the US to shore up more support for his war effort.

Republicans are claiming that Zelensky’s visit to Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election that is home to a sizable population of people of Ukrainian ancestry, was made to provide political support to Democrats.

Johnson called on Zelensky to fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for organizing the recent trip to the Pennsylvania manufacturing site.

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson wrote Wednesday.

Meanwhile, House Oversight Chair James Comer launched an investigation into Zelensky’s use of a US aircraft to fly to the Pennsylvania facility.

“The Committee seeks to determine whether the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power,” Comer wrote in the letter sent to the White House, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense on Wednesday.

James Adams, a Pentagon spokesperson, told CNN in a statement Thursday that the flight to Pennsylvania “was a U.S. Department of Defense-funded mission. The Department requested Military Airlift (MILAIR) support to facilitate travel for senior U.S. government officials from both the Department of State and the Department of Defense.”

The statement added, “These officials were conducting official business related to U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, which included a stop at Newark Liberty International Airport, where they linked up with President Zelensky before continuing to Wilkes-Barre International Airport in Pennsylvania.”

Senators warn Ukrainian leader to back off Vance criticisms

Zelensky said in an interview with The New Yorker that Vance was “too radical” and has sent the message the Ukraine must sacrifice its territory for peace.

“The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable. But I do not consider this concept of his a plan, in any formal sense,” Zelensky said. “This would be an awful idea, if a person were actually going to carry it out, to make Ukraine shoulder the costs of stopping the war by giving up its territories. … And it wouldn’t necessarily end the war, either. It’s just sloganeering.”

Vance’s Republican colleagues in the Senate sent a clear message to the Ukrainian president when asked about the remark on Wednesday.

Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Republican leadership who is running to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell next Congress, told CNN that Zelensky should “stay out of American politics,” after Zelensky called Vance “too radical.”

“I think it’s a monumental miscalculation by President Zelensky,” said Cornyn. “If he wants support for Ukraine, he should stay out of American politics.”

Senate Republican Whip John Thune added, “I think it would be advisable for him to stay out of American politics,” when asked if it was appropriate for Zelensky to criticize Vance. “They have some differences on some issues but it’s not his place to litigate that here in the middle of an American election.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

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