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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You have just heard me talk to the presidential adviser in a real matter of life and death, not just for Ukraine, but for the Western world. How do you explain that a third of the House Republicans voted against a resolution supporting NATO?
SARAH LONGWELL, FOUNDER, THE REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: Oh, it’s quite simple. It’s about Donald Trump and his capture on the Republican Party, the way that he has changed and shaped the Republican Party since he won the election in 2016. Abandoning NATO has always been central to who Donald Trump is. It’s — he called it fat and obsolete and sloppy. He was always against it. And I think that there’s a lot of us — and I will put myself in this category — who thought that Trump was a cancer on the Republican Party, and that, if you sort of cut him out, there would be this institutional muscle memory that would bounce back, and there would be enough of the old Republican Party there to sort of just come back to normal. And, instead, what you have seen as is, he’s metastasized as a cancer, and the party has gotten Trumpier in its entire posture. And so seeing 63 Republicans vote against just affirming NATO is — that’s all it is. It’s all about the party getting Trumpier and being created more in Donald Trump’s image.
AMANPOUR: Does that mean, though — I hear everything you’re saying. Does that mean then the Republican Party or at least a big chunk of it, is abandoning what used to be its North Star, one of them anyway, on international affairs, to be strong on defense, strong on security?
LONGWELL: Yes, I mean, it’s a real division in the Republican Party. And I will tell you, the Republican Party that I joined was one that believed, as a central fundamental tenet, in American leadership in the world. And there was always a little bit of a recessive, isolationist gene within the — in the party, but that is now the dominant gene. And it’s to the point where — and you see this — you see the Tucker Carlsons of the world out there actively posturing against Ukraine. The Senate-endorsed candidate in Ohio, by Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, he talked about, why do we care about Ukraine? There’s this isolationist movement, and there’s still a chunk of the party, that establishment, the old guard, who just still has that muscle memory. But this new — the people taking over and the candidates that are running in 2022 reflect much more this Donald Trump isolationist vision that is anti-NATO. And if it’s not anti-Ukraine or pro-Russian, it’s kind of anti-anti-Russia, where those of us who would be reflexively and deeply anti-Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they’re kind of there to say, well, now, let’s not say that the Ukrainians are all good. And that has been sort of a devastating turn of events for the Republican Party.
About This Episode EXPAND
Is the West getting enough material support to Ukraine at this critical hour? A number of moves by the GOP in recent that have set alarm bells ringing. While many countries are learning to live with COVID-19, millions in China are still living under lockdown. In his new book, David McSwane reveals that America’s initial COVID-19 response was riddled with corruption and incompetence.
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