Mitch McConnell has just delivered a warning Trump cannot afford to ignore. In The Wall Street Journal, the veteran Republican senator warned that Trump’s continued submission to Putin could jeopardise his entire legislative agenda. McConnell calls Trump’s Russia policy strategically naive and morally bankrupt. More importantly, he signals that Republican senators may withhold their support unless Trump changes course. This is no longer merely about Ukraine. It is about whether Republicans will allow an American president to keep rewarding a Russian dictator while undermining America’s allies. For once, Trump may discover that Congress has a spine.

This footage is from the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Look at that little Ukrainian boy, walking towards the border in tears, surrounded by families fleeing a Russian invasion. Now consider the extraordinary moral bankruptcy of Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and Musk, whose message to Ukraine increasingly amounts to: “Fuck Ukraine. Russia gets our sympathy.” Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff apparently sees Putin as some sort of humanitarian. Quite remarkable. Most people can distinguish a humanitarian from a man whose army bombs hospitals and forces children to flee their homes. Apparently, this requires a level of intellectual sophistication beyond certain members of the American establishment. It hardly takes a magnificent imagination to work out which side these gentlemen might have found more accommodating in 1939. “Never again” was supposed to mean something. It wasn’t a decorative slogan to be dusted off once a year while making excuses for the next dictator. And to those who admire Russia as some glorious defender of Western civilisation, perhaps try learning something about the country. Russia has millions of Muslim citizens. It is hardly the anti-Muslim paradise some of its Western admirers imagine. Nor does Putin’s dictatorship represent the democratic freedoms they claim to cherish. But then, understanding history, geography or basic human decency does rather spoil the pleasure of having absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. That little boy understood who the aggressor was. Remarkable how many supposedly powerful adults still struggle with it.