Rep. Don Bacon, a senior member of House Armed Services Committee who does not plan to run for reelection next year, has long taken exception to Donald Trump’s approach to Russia — but the Nebraska Republican has escalated his criticism following the administration’s release of a new policy document.
The 2025 National Security Strategy that the White House made public Dec. 5, raised eyebrows in Washington for mentioning Russia only in passing while criticizing European allies. The strategy reflects Trump’s apparent predilection for Russia and his cordial relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They’re saying he’s the new Reagan. He’s the new Chamberlain,” Bacon said of Trump, an apparent reference to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s description of Trump in a Dec. 6 speech as “the true and rightful heir of Ronald Reagan.”
In referencing Neville Chamberlain, Bacon was taking issue with an the administration’s suggestion that Ukraine trade territory for peace in order to end Russia’s invasion.
Chamberlain was the British prime minister who signed a deal in late 1938 to give part of what was then Czechoslovakia to Adolph Hitler, only to see Hitler respond by invading the country several months later, gain control of Czech border fortifications and trigger World War II.
Bacon, who won reelection five times in a purple district that Harris carried in 2024, said the Trump administration’s apparent fealty to Russia echoes Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany, including in particular details.
Trump’s reported aim to get Ukraine to cede its western Donbas region to Russia as part of a deal to end the war mirrors 1938, Bacon said — not just in its offer of land for purported peace but also in that Ukraine has its own critical defensive fortifications in the Donbas.
“Just giving it to the Russians would be terrible,” Bacon said. “Whoever thought a Republican would be encouraging a country getting invaded to give more land to Russia to make peace? And it doesn’t guarantee peace. A year or two from now, Russia could start again.”
Talks continue
Bacon says he is giving voice to concerns felt more widely in GOP circles than public remarks and legislative actions indicate, which have in any event gradually shown more resistance to Trump’s policy toward Russia.
Bacon’s comments come against the backdrop of on-again, off-again peace talks to try to bring an end to the war Russia began with its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Saturday, officials from Ukraine, France, Germany and the United Kingdom plan to meet in Paris to discuss the terms of an end to the war in Ukraine. The White House said Dec. 11 that it is not clear if American officials will attend.
Meanwhile, it emerged on Friday that FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino met recently with Ukraine’s top peace negotiator in the United States.
Asked to respond to Bacon’s comments about Trump, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said by email: “Over the past few weeks, the President’s team has made tremendous progress with respect to ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. President Trump believes the senseless killing should be brought to an end, but as he has said repeatedly, ‘it takes two to tango.’”
Bacon and other critics say it is unfair to Ukraine to depict Kyiv and Moscow as equally at fault in the conflict.
The Trump administration has repeatedly made that argument, even blaming Ukraine for the war.
Dueling strategies
The new national security strategy said “many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat” but did not say if the U.S. government agrees.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitriy Peskov, said the new U.S. strategy is “largely consistent with our vision.”
This approach sharply contrasts with Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy, which had a stated goal of shifting U.S. priorities away from counterterrorism and toward “great power competition” with both China and Russia.
Trump has imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, and the United States reportedly continues to share battlefield targeting intelligence with Ukraine even if America has stopped spending funds to buy Ukraine new arms.
Political pushback
Bacon said many of his GOP colleagues agree with him that Trump is on the wrong strategic track, and he said they are increasingly saying so.
At several points this year, the GOP’s more traditional defense hawks have pushed back on Trump’s approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The hawks expressed concerns in October, for instance, when the administration ordered a cut of 1,000 U.S. forces in Romania.
The House-Senate compromise NDAA for fiscal 2026, which the Senate hopes to clear next week, would authorize spending $400 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays for new U.S. weapons and defense services for Ukraine.
The Senate’s fiscal 2026 Defense appropriations bill would allocate $800 million for such efforts, even as the Trump administration has halted U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine and favored European funded efforts.
The measure would also require the administration to justify to Congress that allies have been consulted and U.S. interests are served before cutting U.S. forces in Europe below a net 76,000, giving up land or property of a certain value from that theater of operations, or relinquishing the role of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
The extent to which Trump would heed these requirements — or if he did, the degree to which they would constrain him — are unclear.
“The lack of respect for the law out of this Pentagon is a huge problem,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, on the House floor Dec. 10.
The Republican hawks’ actions and statements in opposition to Trump’s retrenchment from Europe — and even his administration’s hostility to many of its governments — are rarely expressed as direct criticism of the president himself.
Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief, as well as some of Colby’s aides, have to some degree become lightning rods deflecting GOP criticism from the president.
Colby and company have drawn criticism from some Republicans for their espousal of a shift of U.S. strategic weight from Europe and the Mideast to other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific.
Referring to his GOP colleagues, Bacon said: “There are a lot who agree with me, but they don’t want to stand out with the president. I think more and more are.”
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