Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blamed former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for Republican opposition to aid for Ukraine amid its ongoing war against Russia.
The Senate voted 80-19 on Tuesday to break a filibuster on the $95 billion aid package recently passed by the House. Final passage is expected Tuesday night.
In a press conference after the Senate vote, McConnell pointed to the conservative commentator's February interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a turning point in the GOP debate on the issue.
"I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who in my opinion ended up where he should've been all along, which is interviewing [Russian President] Vladimir Putin," McConnell said in response to a question about Republican opposition to aid to Ukraine. "He had an enormous audience, which convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake."
Newsweek reached out to the Tucker Carlson Network by email to request comment on Tuesday afternoon.
On Saturday, after months of wrangling, lawmakers passed the package that will provide military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
In total, 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans voted in favor of the Ukraine aid bill, while 112 Republicans voted against it. Some hard-right Republicans argued that Congress should instead focus on increased security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The vote came as a large number of Republicans, including outspoken Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been vocal in their opposition to sending further aid to Ukraine. Last month, Greene introduced a motion to vacate House Speaker Mike Johnson, criticizing a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund government agencies.
McConnell added that former President Donald Trump's "mixed views" about aid to Ukraine, which was previously linked to a bipartisan border bill, also stalled the process. In February, Trump said that bill was a "death wish" for Republicans.
"The former president had, sort of, mixed views on it. We all felt that the border was a complete disaster, myself included," McConnell said Tuesday. "At first, it was an effort to make law, which requires us to deal with Democrats, then a number of our members thought it wasn't good enough.
"Then our nominee for president didn't want us to do anything at all, so that took months for us to work our way through it."
Passing the bill on Saturday did nothing to quell Republican dissent.
On Sunday, Texas Republican Representative Tony Gonzales had some harsh words for some of his colleagues who voted against the series of foreign aid bills.
"I serve with some real scumbags," he said on CNN's State of the Union.
Another clash emerged over the motion to oust Johnson. Wisconsin Representative Derrick Van Orden told Axios that he called Florida Representative Matt Gaetz "tubby" on the House floor on Thursday after Gaetz called him "squish"—a term used to refer to moderates who sometimes vote with Democrats.
Carlson, a former Fox News star, faced backlash for meeting with the Kremlin leader, which was the first time Putin agreed to sit down for an interview with Western media since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Putin and Carlson's interview touched on a long list of topics, from a long-winded Russian history lesson to Putin's thoughts on the next U.S. presidential election.
The interview, posted to Carlson's YouTube channel, has been viewed more than 19 million times. Carlson has 1.95 million followers on YouTube and 12.8 million on X, formerly Twitter.
Explaining his motive for the interview, Carlson said in a video statement: "Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now.
"We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin....We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it. You should know as much as you can."
David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, agreed with McConnell's comments about Carlson while also taking aim at Trump's relationship with Putin. Axelrod noted statements Trump made in 2022 when he described Putin as "genius" and "pretty savvy" in how he framed his military strategy.
"This is true. Tucker's been shamelessly pitching Putin's line for years," Axelrod posted on X. "But you really have to work hard to excuse the Republican nominee for POTUS, whose initial reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine was to call it 'genius.'"
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Gabe Whisnant is Deputy Weekend Editor at Newsweek based in South Carolina. Prior to joining Newsweek in 2023, he directed ... Read more
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