GOP’s Don Bacon rips Trump over ‘disgraceful’ behavior on Ukraine, Russia

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on Monday went after President Trump for his recent behavior surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war .

“It’s absolutely disgraceful our president is morally blind on this war. He’s pitched his lot in with the dictator and the war criminal, and he’s being harsh and undermining the democracy, the country that wants to be part of the West, part of the EU, would love to be part of NATO, would love to be allied with us,” Bacon said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, discussing both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine, respectively.

“Putin hates us. The president doesn’t see that. But to say that Russia’s been fine on Ukraine and they bomb cities every night, I was there a month ago. They’re bombing gas stations, restaurants, shopping malls. They’re committing terrorism against Ukrainians,” he added.

On Monday, Trump said he had not yet agreed to a trilateral meeting with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but said he was open to it.

“I would do it,” Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn. “Not so much on Ukraine because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, they haven’t been doing much, and the same with China.”

“We would have it to talk about weapons and denuclearization,” he added.

The president’s comments followed reporting from The Wall Street Journal that Putin proposed a trilateral meeting to talk about the war in Ukraine during a call with Trump earlier this month.

Last week, Trump went after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming he was “not a good guy for us to deal with.”

During a Newsmax interview, the president was asked about Ukraine restarting attacks against Russian energy targets following Trump asking Zelensky to halt such strikes.

“Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with,” the president said. “I’m not a big fan of Zelensky. They’ve destroyed that country.”

“If they’re going to end up with a settlement of some kind, they’re not going to do it with” Zelensky, Trump said when asked if he backed additional military aid for Ukraine.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.