President Trump offered a fulsome defense of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin over the weekend, leaving Republican lawmakers frustrated and flummoxed yet again by the president’s warm feelings toward the rival nation. President Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 28. “I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way that the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does,” McConnell said. But few issues appear to have confounded lawmakers as much as his consistent defense of Putin. In a second tweet, he said that the United States should lift sanctions on Russia only if it ends its violations in Ukraine.

Source: Washington Post February 06, 2017 00:13 UTC