Books | Ghost of Russia

How Moscow remains a recurring theme in the US elections

Hillary Rodham Clinton

There is a core group close to Trump that is unabashedly pro-Putin. Some may well be on the Kremlin’s payroll. In 2016, Kevin McCarthy, then Republican House majority leader and later Speaker of the House, was recorded telling his colleagues, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” He was referring to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California who was defeated in 2018. We know that others, like Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn, have been paid by RT, Russia’s state-run propaganda outlet. And without a doubt many parrot Russian talking points, whether it’s Trump praising Putin’s “genius” (the same thing Lindbergh said about the Nazis), Tucker Carlson slobbering over the dictator in a soft-focus interview and regularly trashing the Ukrainians, or the ultra-MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene asking, “Why doesn't anyone in Washington talk about a peace treaty with Russia?”

A few honest and appalled Republicans have admitted publicly what’s going on. “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base,” said Representative Michael McCaul from Texas, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His colleague Michael Turner from Ohio, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, agreed. “We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages—some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” he said. As in the run-up to World War II, our adversaries want to divide and distract us—and they’re finding too many stooges ready to help. As Roosevelt said, it’s a Trojan horse. It’s undiluted poison.

Many Republicans have no love for Putin, but they follow Trump’s lead because partisanship too often eclipses patriotism. In April, 112 House Republicans voted against aid for Ukraine, defying their own Speaker and the pleas of top military and intelligence officials. They’re not all pro-Kremlin extremists. They’re just partisans in thrall to Trump. There are also still misguided ‘realists’ who oppose arming brave Ukrainians because they fear they can’t win, or they don’t want to further antagonize Putin, or they still believe the ‘delusion’ that America can be an island with no care about what happens to the rest of the world. We don’t need speculative works of fiction to imagine what the result will be if these arguments carry the day. Ukraine will fall. Russian troops will roll forward and be in a position to threaten NATO allies like Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Around the globe, autocrats will be emboldened and democracies will waver. The world w