As congressional Republican leaders push President Joe Biden to act more forcefully to punish Vladimir Putin for sending troops into Ukraine, former President Donald Trump and some of his prominent allies have been praising the Russian leader's style of power.
The fissures point to a growing divide in the Republican Party, between traditional foreign policy hawks who have advocated for a more confrontational U.S. posture to the Russian strongman and a Trump-aligned “MAGA” faction that has expressed some sympathy for Putin's tactics or described them as effective.
On Tuesday, the same day an interview of Trump praising Putin's moves as "genius" was published, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell struck a very different tone by tearing into “Putin’s aggression” and urging Biden to take quick and aggressive action.
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