The war of words between Republicans and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has intensified, with Ted Cruz calling him a “moron” and accusing him of “campaigning for Kamala Harris“.
Cruz and Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance have led the attacks on Zelensky, who is currently on tour in the United States and visited an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania this week with Governor Josh Shapiro, a key ally of Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a recent New Yorker interview Zelensky questioned former President Trump’s understanding of the war in Ukraine and described Vance as “too radical”.
“Ukraine’s President Zelensky came to Pennsylvania and is essentially campaigning for Kamala Harris and he’s attacking Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. It is shocking, I do not ever recall ever seeing a foreign leader do this. It’s infuriating,” he said.
House Republicans, angered that no Republicans were invited and that Zelensky’s flight was paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, have demanded an investigation.
In what Cruz called “one of the greatest unforced errors” he had ever seen from a foreign leader, Zelensky said in the New Yorker interview: “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”
“With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand,” he added.
Zelensky is coming to the end of his trip, in which he has spoken at the United Nations and soon plans to unveil his “victory plan” for the war to the Biden administration.
Focus on the visit, however, has been directed at comments made by the foreign leader concerning Donald Trump.
“This is just dumb on his part, because if Trump wins, he’s got a huge problem that just got bigger,” Cruz said on his Verdict podcast. “And if Trump loses, good luck trying to get Republicans to listen to what he has to say, if he just behaves like a democrat campaign activist.”
Senator Ted Cruz questions acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. and Deputy Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Paul Abbate during a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on July 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. Cruz recently criticized comments made by Volodymyr Zelensky about Donald Trump and JD Vance, calling the Ukrainian president an “absolute moron.”
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Cruz went on to call Zelensky a “campaign prop” for Harris, and an “absolute moron” for jeopardizing Republicans’ support for Ukraine through the comments.
On Wednesday evening, Vance himself responded to the attack by Zelensky, telling the crowd in Traverse City, Michigan that the Ukrainian leader had acted in an ungrateful way to the support.
“I don’t appreciate Zelensky coming to this country and telling the American taxpayers what they ought to do,” the Ohio senator said. “He ought to say ‘thank you’ to the American taxpayers.”
Cruz claimed that that the choice of Pennsylvania – one of this year’s most critical swing states – was not a picked “at random.”
“I have never seen this happen, where a foreign leader comes – he went to Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state in the country – he went to an ammunitions factory,” Cruz said. “He arrived on an air force jet, presumably paid for by the taxpayers – and he does this whole interview in The New Yorker where he slams Donald trump and he slams JD Vance.”
“Who the hell is Zelensky to be trying to interfering in our election. The arrogance of this guy,” Cruz continued.
Zelensky’s visit has also drawn criticism from Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who lambasted Zelensky’s comments about his father following the most recent assassination attempt.
On X, the former president’s son wrote: “So a foreign leader who has received billions of dollars in funding from American taxpayers, comes to our country and has the nerve to attack the GOP ticket for President? And he does this right after a pro-Ukraine zealot tried to assassinate my father? Disgraceful!”
Ryan Routh, the man who attempted to assassinate Trump on September 15, was a long-time support of the Ukrainian resistance, even travelling to the country at one point in the hopes of joining its armed forces.
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