Some Republicans Have ‘Strange Affection’ for Putin: Former Trump Adviser

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who served as national security adviser during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, said on Sunday that some Republicans, including former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, need to “disabuse themselves” of their “strange affection” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s some people in the Republican Party these days which kind of tend to parrot Vladimir Putin’s talking points,” McMaster said on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, adding that “they’ve got to disabuse themselves of this strange affection” for the Russian leader. McMaster served as national security adviser for just over a year during Trump’s first administration from February 2017 to April 2018.

McMaster mentioned Gabbard specifically, who Trump named to be his director of national intelligence (DNI).

“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding based on the nominee for DNI about what motivates him [Putin], McMaster said. “It’s not his security concerns. His security concerns don’t need to be allayed,” later adding that Gabbard has previously said “Putin really felt aggrieved and that’s why he had to invade Ukraine.”

The U.S. is a strong ally of Ukraine and has provided funding and weapons support to Kyiv against Putin’s February 2022 invasion. Earlier this month, the U.S. confirmed that Ukraine fired long-range ATACMS missiles into Russia for the first time after President Joe Biden gave permission for Kyiv to use them.

Face the Nation‘s host Margaret Brennan followed up on McMaster’s comments and said, “That’s a Russian talking point that she’s [Gabbard] repeated and in direct contravention to what U.S. intelligence has concluded.”

Newsweek has reached out to Gabbard for comment via email on Sunday.

McMaster’s comments come after some Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about Gabbard as the DNI pick.

Some have questioned her allegiance, potential affiliations with other non-U.S. ally governments, and sympathetic view towards Russia.

Gabbard drew criticism from Democrats for not condemning Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. A secret meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who is an ally of Russia, in 2017 also raised concerns. In 2019, she told MSNBC that she does not believe Assad is an enemy of the United States. Gabbard has also described Assad, who has been accused of committing human rights violations, as a “brutal dictator.”

Gabbard, a veteran who previously served in Iraq and Kuwait, is a former Democratic representative for Hawaii and Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 prior to leaving the party. This fall, she campaigned with Trump and officially became a Republican in October.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that Gabbard’s 2017 trip to Syria leads her to believe “she’s compromised.”

“The U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. And so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check,” the senator added.

Her comments have drawn pushback from some within the GOP, including Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma who told State of the Union co-host Dana Bash on Sunday, “Tammy [Duckworth] is absolutely dead wrong on this and she should retract her words.”

He added: “That’s the most dangerous thing she could say—is that a United States lieutenant colonel in the United States Army is compromised and is an asset of Russia.”

During McMaster’s conversation with Brennan on Sunday, he also said that Sebastian Gorka, who Trump has named deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, is not a good person to advise the commander-in-chief.

“I think that the president, others who are working with him, will probably determine that pretty quickly, soon after he gets into that job,” he said.

Gorka was deputy assistant to the president for seven months during Trump’s first administration from January to August 2017. He is a conservative commentator who hosted his own show on Newsmax and previously was a regular commentator to Fox News.