Dishonors? Never had any.....

‘Dishonors the decades-long bipartisan commitment’: Democrats slam Trump for his European takedown

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

President Donald Trump’s comments expressing skepticism about the leadership of Ukraine and its European allies aren’t sitting well with top Democrats, who on Tuesday ripped the president for his handling of Russia’s war against Kyiv.

In an exclusive White House sitdown with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns on Monday for a special episode of “The Conversation,” Trump admonished European countries as “weak” and “decaying,” endorsed new elections in Ukraine and teased that the transatlantic NATO alliance “calls me Daddy.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and key ally to former President Joe Biden, labeled Trump’s conduct in the region “unpredictable, chaotic and destabilizing.”

“This latest statement from President Trump dishonors the decades-long bipartisan commitment in the United States and here in Congress to stand up for democracy and human rights and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies,” Coons said on CNN on Tuesday morning. “As the president just referenced, they’ve stepped forward.”

Trump’s remarks came on the heels of a new National Security Strategy the White House released last week, which largely refrained from criticizing Russia while suggesting the “administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the [Ukraine] war.”

In the Monday interview, the president expressed skepticism that Ukraine would prevail in its war against Moscow, telling POLITICO that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “gonna have to get on the ball” and start “accepting things.”

Coons said that it is Trump who has most endangered a just peace between Ukraine and Russia. He pointed to the president’s ill-fated White House meeting with Zelenskyy in February, in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance dressed down the wartime leader in the Oval Office. And he faulted the administration for its concessions on NATO membership for Kyiv.

“President Trump is trying to show urgency to resolve the war between Russia and Ukraine,” Coons said. “But he’s doing it in exactly the wrong way by undermining the country that has bravely fought for its freedom and ignoring or undermining our allies who are sustaining and supporting Ukraine in that fight.”

The European Commission responded to Trump’s broadsides Tuesday, with its chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho, telling POLITICO, “We are proud of our leaders.”

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN that Trump’s comments conveyed a fundamental misunderstanding that “Putin is driving this war.”

“Ukraine is holding strong at the moment, despite what Russia is doing,” Smith said. “But the biggest impediment for the last, gosh, almost year now has been President Trump consistently undermining Zelenskyy, whereby our European partners have made it clear, ‘we’re not going to abandon Ukraine.”