Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that former President Donald Trump used Ukraine like a “political poker chip.”
Anchor Chuck Todd said, “One of the first times you and I talked publicly about Ukraine was during the first President Trump impeachment. One of your traveling companions frequently was Ron Johnson, and he said something interesting this week that I wanted to get your reaction to. He said, ‘I personally think if Trump had met with Zelensky, never made the phone call, I think the two of them would have hit it out beautifully, and none of this would have ever happened.’”
He added, “This seems to be Senator Johnson admitting that the situation in Ukraine would be different had Trump handled it different. Is he right? Do you agree with him?”
Murphy said, “Listen, we lost four years of cooperation. Had Ukraine not been a political poker chip during the Trump administration, we could have been increasing our level of military commitment to Ukraine. I don’t know if I can sit here today and say things would have been different. I think ultimately, President Putin wanted to control Ukraine, and he was going to stop at nothing in order to bring it back into the Russian orbit. So, yes, I think Ukraine would be in a better position to defend itself today had Trump not played games during those four years, but I’m not sure that anything was going to stop Vladimir Putin from moving troops into Ukraine.”
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