Former RNC chair slams Trump over his comments on Ukraine, says his supporters ‘dance with the devil’

• In an op-ed, former RNC chair Marc Racicot slammed Trump over his comments on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Racicot said Trump’s statements were “laced with reckless propositions, cruelty, and improprieties.”
• Racicot warned that those who support Trump or excuse his behavior “dance with the devil.”

Former Republican National Committee chair Marc Racicot has slammed former President Donald Trump for his comments on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying they were “laced with reckless propositions, cruelty, and improprieties.”

In an op-ed run by several publications this week, Racicot — who chaired the RNC from 2002 to 2003 — made a case for why he thought Trump was unfit to lead the US.

“If the former president’s recent remarks about Ukraine had amounted to just another ration of narcissistic self-indulgence, it would have been briefly noted, but not thoroughly examined,” Racicot wrote. “Such patent nonsense has become, after all, predictable and expected.”

“But his recent comments before and after the Russian invasion were laced with reckless propositions, cruelty, and improprieties which continue to poison and fray the political life and social fabric of the nation,” he added. 

In particular, Racicot took aim at Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The vicious actions of the Russian president have been universally condemned by decent people everywhere. But, not by Donald Trump. To the contrary, the former president could only express his admiration of the Russian president’s tactics by describing him as ‘savvy,’ ‘smart,’ and a ‘genius,'” he wrote.

Racicot also criticized Trump for suggesting that the US put Chinese flags on its fighter jets to “bomb the shit out of Russia.”

“In addition to revealing a complete lack of maturity and morality, such comments also expose an appalling lack of compassion for the death and destruction of the lives, culture, and country of the people of Ukraine. And they remind us once more, how critical the character and stability of one person can be,” he wrote.

Citing author J.M. Smith, Racicot ended his piece with a warning to those who support Trump or continue to excuse his behavior to “secure his favor.”

“If you dance with the devil, then you haven’t got a clue, for you think you’ll change the devil, but the devil changes you,” he wrote.

Despite being heavily criticized by various parties — including veteran diplomats — for praising Putin, Trump has continued to make bold claims about the Ukraine crisis.

He released a statement on Wednesday containing false claims about NATO while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was speaking in Congress. During a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump claimed that his personality had kept the US “out of war” during his presidency and said Russia would not have dared to annex “one inch” of Ukrainian territory if he was in charge.