Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) didn’t even try to answer George Stephanopoulos’ questions over Donald Trump’s repeated, positive comments about Vladimir Putin.

In an interview ABC’s This Week, Stephanopoulos told Cotton “you’ve been stalwart in your opposition of Vladimir Putin, [but] the same cannot be said for the leader of your party.” Stephanopoulos noted that even though Trump has spoken negatively about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the former president has also lauded Putin as “smart” while panning the U.S. and NATO as “dumb.”

“Are you prepared to condemn that rhetoric from the leader of your party?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“You heard what I’ve had to say about Vladimir Putin. He’s a ruthless dictator who launched a naked, unprovoked war of aggression,” Cotton responded. This didn’t come anywhere close to answering Stephanopoulos’s question, so the ABC anchor followed up by asking “why can’t you condemn Donald Trump for those comments?”

Cotton, more or less, ran away from the inquiry:

George, if you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic, I would encourage him to invite you on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. they can speak for themselves.

From there, Stephanopoulos noted that Trump just gave a Fox News interview in which the former president stated he had “no message” for Putin, even as Russia continues to attack Ukraine.

“Why can’t you condemn that?” Stephanopoulos asked. “I feel quite confident that if Barack Obama or Joe Biden said something like that, you would be the first in line to criticize them.”

Cotton once again refused to answer the question directly, nor did he answer the follow-up question: “If Donald Trump runs again, can you support him?”

Watch above, via ABC.

The post Tom Cotton Twists Himself in Knots to Avoid Condemning Trump’s Russia Rhetoric Under Brutal Grilling From Stephanopoulos first appeared on Mediaite.

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