The vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference offered yet another Republican defense of President Donald Trump’s infamous phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart when pressed by CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
In the interview with Bash, Sen. Roy Blunt refused to directly answer whether Trump asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens was appropriate. He dodged the question, saying that, “I have never been very happy with any of the Ukraine decisions since the Russians invaded Crimea. We told President Obama in December of 2015 to provide lethal aid, which he never did. I have never been happy with the way any of this has been handled regarding Ukraine. And we’re trying to do what we can now to be helpful.”
When asked if what Trump did was a mistake, he replied, “Presidents make mistakes. I don’t know that this call was a mistake. ”
He also said that the upcoming Senate impeachment trial is “not a trial in any classic sense,” adding that there are senators running for the Democratic presidential nomination and that every member has “obvious” political considerations.
