Kluth: Republicans are (almost) ready for maximum pressure on Russia

The epiphany of common sense came late in an otherwise tedious congressional subcommittee hearing and from a Democrat Representative Jim Costa He gets that Republicans and the administration of Donald Trump take pride in exerting maximum pressure on Iran Costa made clear But at this seminal moment in American and world history he required what about maximum pressure on Russia What about it indeed The greatest puzzle among multiple about MAGA foreign plan is why Trump refuses to get tough with Russian leader Vladimir Putin who shows no interest in good-faith peace negotiations and is cynically stringing Trump along playing this president like a fiddle in the words of Jeanne Shaheen the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee There is Trump s worrisome history of indulging or even admiring Putin while showing contempt for his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy Then there s his shocking failure to distinguish between aggressor and victim in the conflict and his bizarre negotiating tactic of giving away the West s best bargaining chips guard guarantees for Ukraine a path to its NATO membership before talks have even begun And whenever Putin responds by bombing more Ukrainians Trump does nothing beyond venting on Truth Social This is minimum pressure Seeking moral clarity The obvious explanation for how Trump has so far gotten away with such weakness is that Republicans control Congress and he controls Republicans The MAGA faction which includes neo-isolationists and Putin apologists has largely succeeded in cowing Republicans in the hawkish mold of Ronald Reagan a tradition that believes in American exceptionalism and leadership Too often the effect has been to make the GOP put lipstick on defeatism But the MAGA takeover of the GOP is not complete and Republicans ready to stare down Russia though their numbers are unclear are waiting for their moment to change unit That should provide a glimmer of hope not only for Ukrainians but also for America s allies as they gather in the coming weeks first in the Group of Seven and then at the NATO summit in The Hague Take Don Bacon a Republican congressman from Nebraska who spent almost half his life in the Air Force and has been a Reagan Republican since he was He is one of the limited in the GOP who stands with Ukraine and against Russian aggression whether that stance is in vogue or not On various occasions he and his wife received profanity-laced threats Yet here he still is I just see it so clearly that we have a leadership role in the world to help Ukraine prevail and I m willing to take someone s anger over this because I think it s so right he narrated me By Bacon s count Russia has changed borders by force nine times since and to him it s clear that if Putin were allowed to prevail in Ukraine he d go on to add a th or th perhaps in Moldova or Georgia What he wants from his colleagues and the administration is simple First he notified me I would love to have moral clarity Who is the bad guy Who s the good guy Peace talks only make sense once that is clear because you got to negotiate with truth Even then he thinks Trump already sabotaged his and Kyiv s negotiating position by making concessions in advance All the more reason to dial up the economic and diplomatic pressure on Russia to the absolute maximum Political courage A bipartisan bill to that effect is already waiting in the Senate If it becomes law it will punish countries including giants such as India and China with prohibitive tariffs and other measures if they continue to buy Russian oil gas or uranium thus sinking the shadow fleets and ending the gray-market transactions that have sustained the Kremlin s war effort despite Western sanctions The ordinance hasn t gone to the floor yet because Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham a co-sponsor want to move forward with rather than against Trump But a growing group of other legislators is raring to go That s becoming clearer in almost every hearing In one Senate session last week Mitch McConnell the committee chairman and former majority leader confronted Trump s defense secretary Pete Hegseth with the same moral and strategic clarity that guides Bacon Who s the aggressor and who s the victim McConnell pressed Hegseth Russia is the aggressor Hegseth admitted Which side do you want to win McConnell pursued This president is committed to peace in that conflict Hegseth tried to evade That caused cringing in the room We re in the midst of brokering what appears to be allowing the Russians to define preeminence McConnell harangued America s reputation is on the line Will we defend democratic allies against authoritarian aggressors Twisting a rhetorical knife into the cabinet member of an administration that states to Make America Great Again McConnell lectured his Republican witness that we don t want a headline at the end of this conflict that says Russia wins and America loses Related Articles Overnight Russian attack on Ukraine kills and injures Putin and Trump discussed Middle East tensions Ukraine war in phone call Letters Civil disobedience is as significant at present as ever Champion Nuclear war s too serious for a Tulsi Gabbard video Russia s military casualties top million in -year-old war Ukraine says McConnell is in the dusk of his career and has relatively little to lose from speaking out For others in Congress though it takes courage Bacon advised me that a large number of like-minded Republicans don t yet dare step out of the closet One high-profile colleague whom he won t name keeps coming up to him saying Don thank you for speaking up on Ukraine we need more of it Bacon chuckles I m like it d be helpful if you spoke up As war consumes eastern Europe and so much of the planet and the administration gropes fecklessly for America s proper role in this world it s easy to despair especially if you re Ukrainian But the struggle is not yet lost either within Congress or within the party of Trump which also remains the party of Reagan The right texts are drafted and the voices of courage are audible if still insufficient All that remains is for others to heed their conscience and to pass the test of history by certainly letting Putin feel America s maximum pressure Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy national prevention and geopolitics Bloomberg Distributed by Tribune Content Agency