Trump’s Praise of Putin, ‘America First’ View Tested by War

WASHINGTON (AP) — From the earliest days of his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively dismantled pillars of Republican foreign policy.

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He mocked John McCain’s capture, validated autocrats, questioned longtime military and security alliances and embraced an isolationist worldview.

And it worked, resonating with voters who believed, in part, that a bipartisan establishment in Washington brokered trade deals that hurt workers in the U.S. and recklessly stumbled into so-called forever wars.

But Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is posing a serious test of Trump’s “America First” philosophy at a moment when the former president is eyeing this year’s midterm elections as an opportunity to keep bending the GOP to his will.