Mike Pence has refused to sit quietly as Donald Trump claims Ukraine is somehow to blame for being invaded by Russia three years ago.
Trump’s former vice president, who war cordial with his former running mate at Jimmy Carter’s funeral and inauguration last month, struck a different tone in a post to X on Wednesday.
“Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war,” he wrote. “Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.”
Pence included a link to a 2022 Fox News report from day one of the Russia-Ukraine war that read, “Russia invades Ukraine in largest European attack since WWII.”
Trump has offered up his own version of history this week, suggesting from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky shouldered the blame for the combined deaths of more than 700,000 of his countrymen and Russians.
“You should have never started it,” Trump told Zelensky. “You could have made a deal.”
The president got more personal in his criticism of Zelensky on Wednesday, calling him a “Dictator without Elections” who has done a “terrible job.” Ukraine has not held elections since February 2022 because it is in a state martial law—a declaration that came after Russia invaded the country by land, air, and sea.
Trump has cozied up to Vladimir Putin in recent weeks, with him reportedly opening up a direct line with the Russian president to discuss peace talks to end the conflict.
The president boasted in a Truth Social post that the U.S. was “successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do.” He also baselessly claimed Zelensky wanted the war to continue so the “gravy train” of U.S. funding would keep flowing in.
Trump’s alignment with Putin over a longtime U.S. ally has angered some on the right, including lawmakers who are typically MAGA hardliners. Others have fallen in line with their party’s leader and turned on Zelensky.
Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who has recently praised Trump for his efforts to ditch NYC congestion pricing, appears to be in the former group. He released a passionate statement Wednesday that declared Ukraine must be at the negotiating table for peace.
“Vladimir Putin is a vile dictator and thug, who has worked in a concerted effort with China and Iran to undermine and destabilize the United States, Europe, Israel, and the free world,” the lawmaker said. “He is not our friend, nor our ally. While I support the effort to end the war in Ukraine, any deal towards peace must include Ukraine at the negotiating table, must protect its structural sovereignty, and that of its neighbors.”
