Senate Republicans are defending President Trump’s decision to pause aid for Ukraine as a negotiating tactic days after his public spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
GOP lawmakers are still feeling the aftershocks of Friday’s blow up, which shelved a minerals deal between the two leaders.
However, many who are ardent Ukraine supporters believe the administration’s decision to press pause on delivering aid is nothing more than a ploy in order to get the Ukrainians back to the table to sign the minerals deal and to pave the way toward a larger deal to end the war with Russia.
“I don’t think it’ll last long. I’m hoping it doesn’t last long. I think the president just wants to get everybody to the table, and I think he’s making progress,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said. “I think President Zelensky’s response that I saw this morning was a positive one and moving in the right direction.”
“Even if you have Russia invading Ukraine, at some stage of the day you have to move past the World War I stance that we’ve got on the battlefield right now. I think the president wants to get there and it sounds like he is making some progress,” he continued, calling Trump’s call “a negotiating tactic.”
Trump on Monday night announced the decision, which pauses military aid to the war-torn nation.
Zelensky said on X Tuesday morning that he is ready to sign the minerals deal at “any time and in any convenient format,” calling Friday’s back-and-forth with Trump and Vice President Vance “regrettable.”
“We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively,” Zelensky added.
Reuters reported that Trump told his aides he’d like to sign the deal and annuonce the agreement during his speech to Congress on Tuesday, though things remained fluid.
The aid pause also capped off a whirlwind stretch that included Trump asserting that Ukraine started the war and calling Zelensky a dictator, the U.S. voting against a UN resolution declaring Russia was the aggressor, and Friday’s tense showdown in front of the media.
A number of Republicans welcomed the Ukrainian president’s latest comments and remain hopeful that any eventual deal will harm Moscow when all is said and done.
But the first step is to get the minerals deal wrapped up. Vance said during an appearance on Capitol Hill that it’s time for the Ukrainians “come to the table and start negotiating” once again and that Trump remains committed to the minerals agreement.
“There’s a deal out there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told CNN on Tuesday, noting that the halting of aid was a “pause, not a stop.”
Thune also labeled Friday’s meeting “unfortunate.”
Multiple GOP lawmakers, however, were unclear of what immediate effect the pause will have. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a top Ukraine supporter who traveled to the country recently, said that he was still trying to determine when Ukrainian fighters would feel the pain on the battlefield.
“There is a pause on aid, but it doesn’t necessarily start today because President Biden pulled forward a lot of the aid,” Tillis said. “So the question I’m trying to get an answer to is at what point does this pause become material to sustaining the daily effort? Don’t have an answer yet.”
“To the extent that it doesn’t advantage Putin, I’m okay with it,” he continued about a potential deal to end the war. “But my only concern is any sort of scenario that Putin feels good about. I don’t want an agreement he feels good about. I want to make him feel like it was a total waste of three years and a horrible loss of life.”
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) echoed Tillis, saying that he was still trying to gather more information on the situation and was hoping for some potential clarity from the president during Tuesday’s joint session address to Congress.
Friday’s meeting also pushed top European allies of Kyiv even further to their side at a time when the Trump administration has become more sympathetic toward the Russians. The United Kingdom, France and Germany all pledged to boost their aid toward the nation.
But members are still hopeful that the minerals deal will get wrapped up and that the aid will continue to flow.
“Clearly Ukraine needs our support and I think the vast majority of us are very supportive of Ukraine,” Rounds said. “They were the ones that were attacked and we need to get past this point where people are simply dying on the battlefield and I think that’s what the president wants to do is get to the part where we end the war.”
“Let’s find out how much pressure can actually be put on the Russians,” he continued. “They’re the aggressors. I don’t think that’s been unnoticed by anybody, including the folks in the administration.”
