Trump Sees Very Fine People on Both Sides of Ukraine War

Last night, Donald Trump issued one of his periodic official statements, expressing his regret about the course of Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine. He did not use the name Putin. Nor, for that matter, did he use the word attack. Instead, Trump framed the invasion as a problem the two countries have tragically failed to work out together:

This remarkable construction deserves closer analysis, but first it’s worth understanding the context. Trump infamously described Putin as a “genius” for massing troops on Ukraine’s border. He has repeatedly declined efforts by allies such as Sean Hannity to coax him into condemning the invasion.

His official statements have followed a handful of familiar themes. Russia’s invasion is Joe Biden’s fault (“Putin is playing Biden like a drum!”). Trump strengthened NATO (“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars”).

But the most peculiar aspect is Trump’s habit of using the passive voice. That is not a construction he employs frequently, but in this case, it serves his purpose of presenting Russia’s invasion as if it were a natural disaster — a tragedy that occurred naturally with no author or source of blame. He has used this device repeatedly.

February 22: “If properly handled, there was absolutely no reason that the situation currently happening in Ukraine should have happened at all.”

February 24: “If I were in Office, this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened!”

March 1: “The RINOs, Warmongers, and Fake News continue to blatantly lie and misrepresent my remarks on Putin because they know this terrible war being waged against Ukraine would have never happened under my watch … There should be no war waging now in Ukraine, and it is terrible for humanity that Biden, NATO, and the West have failed so terribly in allowing it to start.”

March 15: “Now with what’s going on with Russia and Ukraine, among many other things, the great and wonderful people of Hungary need the continued strong leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban more than ever.” (Note that, among the NATO countries, Orbán has taken a uniquely pro-Russia stance. So Trump’s argument that “what’s going on with Russia and Ukraine” makes his election more important directly implies that Orbán’s refusal to support NATO’s response to the invasion makes him more valuable.)

Only once did Trump use an active-voice construction to identify Russia as the aggressor (“If the Election wasn’t Rigged … Russia would not have attacked Ukraine”). On every other occasion, he has relied on verbal contortions to mask its author.

Other Republican leaders have used direct language to describe the invasion. Mitch McConnell (“Putin’s initial aggression was just a small foretaste of what this thug had planned for Ukraine. Now we are watching his full brutality unfold”) and Kevin McCarthy (“Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is reckless and evil. The United States stands with the people of Ukraine and prays for their safety and resolve. Putin’s actions must be met with serious consequence”) have not felt the need to dance around Putin’s culpability.

Trump’s latest statement goes beyond this familiar passive voice and wonders openly why both countries have failed to settle their differences. “It doesn’t make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren’t sitting down and working out some kind of an agreement,” he muses, which would be true if you were starting from the premise that neither country intended to destroy the other. If you begin with the premise that Russia set out to subjugate its neighbor and Ukraine merely wishes to coexist peacefully, then the lack of diplomatic progress makes perfect sense.

Trump’s hawkish Republican allies have tried all along to depict him as a true Russia hawk. The banal truth remains that Trump has a persistent sympathy for Putin and Russia that places him well outside the mainstream of either party.