President Donald Trump reignited a fierce debate within the American right on October 10, when he made some aggressive remarks about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Zelensky could’ve settled this war many times,” Trump said. “He chooses not to. Very difficult.”
Trump went on, “We said you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries, because that’s a world problem that it’s caused… and what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”
“He better damn well stop,” Trump continued. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal.”
Trump’s colorful statements come in the aftermath of an oil deal he announced with Russia, in which he says Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to distribute “300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel” to the American and global markets. As the midterm elections quickly approach, Trump is making a last-ditch effort to bring down the price of gasoline and diesel here in America – an issue which has caused serious concern among voters.
The move was a brief and sudden departure from the foreign policy that has defined Trump 2.0 up to this point, which has been one that combines Bush-like hubris with a lustful attraction to militarism. Trump even seemed to have been growing fond of Zelensky, whom he had lambasted in February 2025 – saying the Ukrainian president was “gambling with World War Three.”
In response to the deal, the Russia-Ukraine war’s top boosters came out of the shadows to denounce the move as a betrayal of Ukraine. Former Vice President Mike Pence was among the pro-war figures to speak out, saying on Twitter/X that “President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.”
Lindsey Graham?
Graham, who died this past summer, was one of the biggest pro-Ukraine zealots in Washington. He was working up until his final hours to pursue the interests of Ukraine in the U.S. Senate. A fierce advocate for increased American support for Zelensky’s war effort, Graham also drafted legislation to sanction Russia – a bill which was passed over the summer in his memory. He often acted as Zelensky’s voice in Trump’s ear.
To say that American foreign policy should prioritize the defense of Graham’s legacy – a man who “never saw a war that he didn’t like,” in Trump’s words – is foolish at best, and dangerous at worst. The good news is that Pence isn’t in a position to enact such policy goals. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people close to Trump, or media figures from whom Trump seeks approval, who share Pence’s perspective.
Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade is one such figure. Kilmeade has always held the line on supporting America’s foreign adventures, no matter how reckless or needless they may be. The proxy war in Ukraine is no different. After the news broke regarding the Russian oil deal, a debate ignited on Sunday’s edition of “Fox & Friends Weekend” between Kilmeade and Rachel Campos-Duffy, wife of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Campos-Duffy gave the administration’s pitch to the Fox audience, attempting to convince Kilmeade.
“[Zelensky] keeps blowing up these refineries after the President [Trump] said ‘please don’t do that,’ especially before the midterms,” Campos-Duffy said. “It’s hurting President Trump and the administration who’s been very generous towards him and his war efforts.”
Kilmeade responded, saying “The President got ticked off because Zelensky came out and said do not buy 500 million tons of diesel, which is in violation, I thought, of the bill that they just signed, Lindsey Graham’s bill. If you buy any energy from Russia, you’re going to get sanctioned and tariffed. Are we going to tariff ourselves?”
He went on, “Zelensky’s frustrated because now all this money is going to flow into Russia, who started this whole war unprovoked, their the bad guys… there’s no plausible, practical peace effort that Vladimir Putin would participate in effectively that would end this war. There’s one person who is responsible. Vladimir Putin. That is it.”
“It would be the biggest mistake of his administration to work with Russia,” Kilmeade added.
Critical thought was nowhere to be found in Kilmeade’s critique of Trump’s deal. What was present, however, was a frantic effort to reframe the issue. To even negotiate with Putin in the furtherance of cooling tensions and lowering gas prices is seen as beyond the pale. War is the only answer the hawks will accept. Any effort to talk to Putin or seek a diplomatic resolution – or even just make an oil deal – is subtly branded as a sinister plot to do the Russian’s dirty work.
It’s somewhat comical how revealing this exchange was. Kilmeade, unwilling to even consider the American perspective, falls back on talking points from 2022 to justify why it’s really okay for Zelensky to upend the global economy by bombing Russian oil refineries.
It’s as though we’ve been transported back to the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, when we were all expected to believe that this was totally out of the blue – “unprovoked” – and that it was now the moral obligation of Americans rich and poor, young and old, to subsidize the war efforts of a country that most people cannot find on a map.
The war in Ukraine has served as a proxy for the broader feud within the American right-wing. Lines have been drawn sharply along foreign policy persuasions, with hawks on one side and non-interventionists, restrainers, and realists on the other. Friction over the war issue has been a recurring theme within right-wing politics, from the days of William F. Buckley and Pat Buchanan, to Ron Paul’s famous “Giuliani moment.”
The arguments over American support for Ukraine have been particularly unfiltered, however.
The Ukraine divide between the hawkish establishment and the non-interventionist right hit its peak in 2023 and 2024 during the GOP presidential primary. Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley famously sparred on the debate stage over this issue. Ramaswamy famously put Haley in the hot seat, claiming she couldn’t name the provinces in Ukraine that she wanted to send American tax dollars to defend. Ramaswamy also called Haley “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels.”
In a separate debate, Haley said Ramaswamy had “no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”
The obvious animosity between the two candidates revealed the truth about the American Right’s foreign policy debate: the two sides are fundamentally opposed to each other, and it centers around this one issue. Also, this issue trumps all the rest. No issue divides the different factions of the American right quite like war. After all, it wasn’t tariffs that caused Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson to launch into a vicious feud. The core, irreconcilable divide is and always has been foreign policy.
Ask yourself, on which issue is Fox News willing to openly break with Trump? They will entertain and defend essentially everything else Trump does, whether it be the “Liberation Day” tariffs or his flip-flops on the Epstein Files. On foreign policy, however, they suddenly become unrelenting interventionist ideologues.
Whenever Trump deviates from the Republican war machine – no matter how shallow or transactional the reason for his shift may be – the talking heads on Fox and throughout establishment media remember what they are fighting for. Without hesitation, they jump to the defense of the foreign policy elites and their deities such as Zelensky, Graham, and Netanyahu.
Now, the hawks are trying their best to remind Trump that Zelensky is somebody who isn’t to be criticized. He is a figure who serves the interests of the Russia hawks in Washington, Paris, and London, and thus he must be defended against those pesky voices who’d seek to question his conduct.
We’ll see how Trump responds.
Nolan Denaro is a political analyst, writer, and host of “The Quest For Clarity” podcast, available on YouTube and Spotify. He is a columnist at Antiwar.com, and his work has been published by Responsible Statecraft, the Libertarian Institute, The Daily Caller, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He writes on U.S. foreign policy, economics, and current events, with a particular focus on war and imperialism. He maintains a personal Substack blog, and you can follow him on X @nolandenaro. Nolan can be reached for correspondence at nolansdenaro@icloud.com.
