It seemed only a matter of time before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would fall in line with Donald Trump in taking a pro-Russian stance on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
DeSantis took the plunge this week at the behest of Fox News host and rabid Russian propagandist Tucker Carlson, who has apparently made it his personal mission to spit-shine the image of Vladimir Putin for his Fox fan base.
In response to a Carlson candidate questionnaire on Ukraine, DeSantis said that becoming "further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia" was not a "vital" national interest. Instead, DeSantis cast securing the border, energy independence, and countering the China Communist Party as more important.
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The move signaled a reversal from the Florida governor's more hawkish instincts as a Congressman, when, in 2015, he favored arming Ukraine after Russia annexed Crimea.
DeSantis' turnabout is neither subtle nor inspired—it's purely defensive. As he eyes a clash with Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, DeSantis surrendered Ukraine in order to deprive Trump of one more issue on which he could hammer his MAGA protégé. Among the MAGA faithful, Trump has turned hawkish neocons—alongside RINOs and “globalists” (i.e., Jewish people)—into another punching bag.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month, Trump said the GOP had been ruled by "freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools."
"But we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush," he added, putting a fine point on exactly who those freaks and fools were.
DeSantis is also chasing the Republican base, which has grown increasingly uninterested in aiding Ukraine as the conflict has ground on over the past year. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in February found that 50% of Republicans now believe the U.S. is doing "too much" to aid Ukraine, a steep increase from the 18% who held that view in April of last year.
The new foreign policy positioning of the Florida governor created a distinct fault line among the party's presidential hopefuls.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley issued a much more old-school Republican statement on Ukraine, asserting that stopping Russia is indeed a vital U.S. interest.
“If Russia wins," she wrote, "there is no reason to believe it will stop at Ukraine.”
But the DeSantis news also drew swift condemnations from McConnell-aligned Senate Republicans.
“The Neville Chamberlain approach to aggression never ends well,” remarked Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, referring to the British prime minister who adopted an appeasement strategy toward Adolf Hitler. “This is an attempt by Putin to rewrite the map of Europe by force of arms.”
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he was "disturbed" by the comments, while Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt, “I don’t know what he’s trying to do or what the goal is."
McConnell himself has sought to downplay the increasingly isolationist leanings of the GOP.
At the Munich Security Conference last month, McConnell joked with his international audience that "reports about the death of Republican support for strong American leadership in the world have been greatly exaggerated."
McConnell said GOP leaders "overwhelmingly" support being involved abroad and are committed to both a strong trans-Atlantic alliance and helping Ukraine. Yet weeks later, his House counterpart, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, rejected an invitation to visit Ukraine from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Perhaps no one offered a more blistering response to the DeSantis cave than former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
Cheney flat-out called DeSantis "wrong" and disputed his characterization of the conflict as a "territorial dispute."
“The Ukrainian people are fighting for their freedom," she said in a statement to The New York Times. "Surrendering to Putin and refusing to defend freedom makes America less safe.”
"Weakness is provocative," she continued, "and American officials who advocate this type of weakness are Putin's greatest weapon. Abandoning Ukraine would make broader conflict, including with China and other American adversaries, more likely."
But whatever the party once was, it's no longer the party of Cheney and McConnell. It's Trump's party and DeSantis is starting to appear as if he's simply squatting in it.
And while Trump is certainly setting the pace for Republicans, he's not in sync with the broader American electorate. Fully 80% of Democrats in the Post poll said America is either giving Ukraine "the right amount" of aid (58%) or giving too little (22%), while 61% of independents believe the U.S. is doing the right amount (40%) or too little (21%).
It's no accident that Senate Republicans are trying to paper over their party's growing inclination to leave Ukraine twisting in the wind.
