After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European allies at the White House on Monday, President Trump again appeared to blame Ukraine for starting the war with Russia. (Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.)
Trump said during a phone interview with Fox News: “It’s not a war that should have been started. You don’t do that. You don’t take, you don’t take on a nation that’s ten times your size.”
[Note: After Trump announced a prospective meeting with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia launched the largest attack of August on Ukraine, less than a mile away from the NATO border.]
MAGA-aligned U.S. Congressman Warren Davidson (R-OH), one of the nine Republicans who voted against a House Resolution in 2024 condemning the illegal abduction and forcible transfer of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation, was asked to comment on Trump’s comments on CNN.
CNN’s John Berman asked Davidson: “What should Ukraine have done when Russia rolled tanks over the border and invaded?”
CNN: What should Ukraine have done when Russia rolled tanks over the border and invaded?
REP. WARREN DAVIDSON: What they should’ve done is going back to 2013, 2014, they should’ve been clear that they wanted to maintain a friendly relationship with Russia, that they’re not… pic.twitter.com/z3l9x8W7as
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2025
Davidson replied: “What they should’ve done is, going back to 2013, 2014, they should’ve been clear that they want to maintain a friendly relationship with Russia, that they’re not posing a threat to Russia.”
He added: “Russia feels threatened by a lot of things including the internal domestic affairs of Ukraine.”
The Congressman then talked about some heavily Russian areas of Ukraine in which he said some residents, including a friend of his, were prevented from speaking Russian or celebrating their cultural heritage.
Davidson added: “That’s not an excuse for the invasion or war but there was no diplomacy, that was de-escalatory, in fact, everything was escalatory. And so I think, look, if you go back to, you know, maybe, maybe some days in – imagine a bar, everybody might get a little loud and mouthy until like, the defensive end guy stands up and he’s, you know, six-five, about 280 and clearly really fit, and every time I’ve seen that happen, somebody gets really diplomatic really quick, and I think that’s what President Trump’s talking about. You didn’t give enough weight to diplomacy.”
Berman replied, “Another way to look at it is sometimes you have to stand up to bullies.” He added, “You’re talking about the lessons of World War I, there are people talking about the lessons of World War II in Munich and concessions right there, but it does sound like you’re putting some responsibility on Ukraine for this conflict.”
The X account of Akash Maniam responded to Davidson: “So if criminals break into his home, torch the place, butcher his family & steal his children, would his first response be to make friends with them?”
Another replied to Maniam: “Think he is saying ‘get a time machine, go to time before burglars broke in and become friends with them’.”