GOP senators back Trump’s demand for Ukraine elections, but won’t call Zelenskyy ‘dictator’

Republican lawmakers are backing President Donald Trump’s insistence that Ukraine hold elections, even if they don’t share his belief that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “dictator.” 

“I think you have to give them some space… There is a negotiation going on,” said Sen. Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Trump on Tuesday night said Ukraine “never should have started” the war, and doubled down by calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” because Ukraine hasn’t held elections since Russia invaded the country in 2022.

“Ukraine clearly did not start this war,” Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., wrote on X. “The fact is that Russia invaded Ukraine and must be held accountable. Otherwise, aggressors will be encouraged in their bad actions.”

Still, the Nebraska senator commended Trump for trying to end the war.

TRUMP CALLS UKRAINE’S ZELENSKYY A ‘DICTATOR WITHOUT ELECTIONS’ AS RIFT WIDENS

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., backed up the president’s push for elections. “We held elections during World War II. Britain held elections during World War II. If they’re a democracy, they should hold elections. I don’t think that’s difficult,” he told reporters Thursday. 

“[Zelenskyy] is the elected leader of the country,” said Hawley. “But, you know, at a certain point you’ve got to hold elections.”

Vice President JD Vance was on Capitol Hill for a lunch with Republican senators, but the president’s bold assertion about the Ukrainian leader was not a topic of discussion, according to Hawley. 

Zelenskyy was originally up for re-election in April 2024, but Ukraine’s constitution bars holding elections until the president lifts the martial law order he instituted after the 2022 invasion.

“Well, we’ve got to have elections,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said when asked about the comments.

“When it comes to blame for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I blame Putin above all others,” Graham added in a post on X, claiming Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were “pathetically weak in handling Putin and failed to protect Ukraine from invasion.” 

Still, Graham called Trump Ukraine’s “best hope” to end the war. Trump “will achieve this goal in the Trump way,” he said. 

Graham spoke with Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to the Ukrainian leader. “As always, Sen. Graham is constructive and doing a lot to help bring peace closer,” he said. 

“Make no mistake about it, that invasion was the responsibility of one human being on the face of this planet. It was Vladimir Putin,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters. 

Tillis said he believed Putin planned to roll through the Baltic States and “send the signal to China that now is the time” they can take over Taiwan. 

“That’s what this is about, and that’s what we have to communicate,” he said. 

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., signaled that he disagreed with Trump’s comments on Zelenskyy, calling Putin a “gangster” and an “evil person.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., called Zelenskyy the “duly elected president of Ukraine” but said he did not believe U.S. policy was aligning with Ukraine. 

UKRAINE ADVOCATES SAY POST-WAR ELECTIONS WOULD BE A FAR BETTER OPTION, BUT ELECTIONS OFFER RUSSIA AN OPPORTUNITY TO SOW CHAOS.  

“I think he’s factually wrong on those points,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-S.D., said of Trump’s comments. “I also don’t know what his motive [is] behind it. As a negotiator, he’s always positioning, and he’s in a negotiating mood these days.”

Trump’s remarks came just after Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with their Russian counterparts. 

The team came back with an agreement to increase diplomatic presence in each other’s nation and an agreed-upon need for elections in Ukraine. 

Russia has insisted it will not sign a peace agreement until Ukraine agrees to hold elections, and the U.S. is now “floating” the idea of a three-stage plan: ceasefire, then Ukrainian elections, then inking of a peace deal.

General Valerii Zaluzhny, likely Zelenskyy’s most formidable opponent in a re-election campaign, said he would not entertain the idea of running against Ukraine’s president until the war is over. 

“When such conditions come, I will be ready to give an answer to such a question. For now, our task is to endure and save our nation. And only after that will we think about other things,” he said.

Zelenskyy, according to Trump, “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’”

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” Trump wrote. “Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died.” 

Dmitry Medvedev, a top Kremlin security official, remarked: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud. [Trump] is 200 percent right [about Zelenskyy]. Bankrupt clown.”