Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said President Trump was “wrong” to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator on Wednesday and for appearing to be “standing on the side” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The president needs a do-over day – and start again. He took a bad turn,” Bacon, a moderate Republican, said in an interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “I think what he said is wrong, and it’s a shame.”
Trump’s war of words with Zelensky escalated on Wednesday, when he took to Truth Social and called the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections” who was doing a “terrible job.”
Bacon, in the interview, pushed back on the claim, noting Zelensky was, in fact, democratically elected and that the country’s constitution allows for elections to be postponed under martial law, which was invoked because of Russia’s invasion.
Bacon also said the president’s words do not reflect the views of the whole GOP.
“Many Republicans know what the president said today was wrong,” Bacon said. “Putin started this invasion. He is the dictator. He has killed all of his opponents. Zelensky was rightfully elected.”
“Ukraine is the victim,” he added. “And I would ask that our president stand on the side of freedom, the side of democracy, the side of the victim, not the invader, and stick up for what’s right.”
“And so I want to be very strong in my words today,” Bacon said, “because this Republican does not agree with what the president said.”
The tension between Trump and Zelensky quickly escalated after Ukraine was left out of talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia earlier this week, drawing a rebuke from Zelensky.
Trump responded Tuesday with unfounded allegations that Zelensky “started” the war, with the Ukrainian leader responding Wednesday that the U.S. president was living in a “web of disinformation.” Trump sent his angry Truth Social post hours later.
“I think he handled it tactfully,” Bacon said, when asked whether he thinks Zelensky responded to Trump appropriately. “You have to push back. He is the victim. Putin is the invader. Putin’s bombing of cities. Russians are obliterating the towns that they have taken over and they’ve assassinated or murdered prisoners of war. They’ve raped and pillaged.”
“Russia’s on the bad side here,” he added. “And we need a president that has moral clarity when it comes to this war, and I right now don’t see that.”
Bacon said he had hoped President Trump would be stronger on Ukraine than former President Biden, who Bacon said was too slow to deliver weapons to the war-torn democracy.
“I had hoped that this president would step up and try to finish this war in the right way, not in an un-noble way. And what we see today is not a noble course of action,” Bacon said. “We’re standing on the side of the dictator, not the side of democracy.”
