Friday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said his “stomach turned” when President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin his good friend.
Cooper asked, “Senator, I mean, I’ve asked this question to a lot of people, but you have seen a lot of these kinds of summits. Did anything come out of this in your mind?”
Blumenthal said, “Nothing came out of this summit. It was a nothing burger. It was a shrug of the shoulders. But I will tell you, Anderson, my stomach turned when I heard the president of the United States characterize Vladimir Putin as his fabulously good friend. Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. He has directed soldiers to kill women and children and bury them in mass graves. He’s kidnapping children as we speak. The reality on the ground is that people are bleeding and dying all around Ukraine because Putin is continuing to bomb them. And at the front, he’s continuing to pummel the brave Ukrainian soldiers.”
He added, “He doesn’t want peace. The only way to convince him to stop this diplomatic rope-a-dope, playing the president and delaying any kind of ceasefire, is through strength.”
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