The former US president’s son has repeatedly condemned the Biden administration for sending money to Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump Jr. speaks before his father, former President Donald Trump, holds a campaign rally in Miami, Florida, November 6, 2022 Miami © AP / Rebecca Blackwell
Donald Trump Jr. has called out Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for his recent crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. A vocal critic of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, Trump Jr. jokingly suggested that the government “send him another $100 billion with no accountability.”
“Zelensky is banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” Trump Jr. tweeted on Friday. “His government has also been raiding Ukrainian Orthodox churches and arresting priests. (Prob why he’s a [Democrat] superstar).”
“He’s all about freedom guys,” Trump Jr. jeered. “Let’s send him another $100,000,000,000.00 with no accountability.”
BREAKING: Zelensky is banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.His government has also been raiding Ukrainian Orthodox churches and arresting priests. (Prob why he’s a Dem superstar)He’s all about freedom guys. Let’s send him another $100,000,000,000.00 with no accountability.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 2, 2022
Zelensky announced on Thursday that Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council had instructed the Ukrainian government to ban Moscow-affiliated religious organizations. This ban will mainly target the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious organization, which is linked to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Ukraine’s domestic security agency, the SBU, raided at least eight religious sites on Friday. Zelensky said that a number of religious officials would be personally sanctioned, while the government would consider seizing the property of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Kiev, after the SBU arrested a number of priests there and charged them with “glorifying Russia.”
US President Joe Biden has described Zelensky as fighting “for the essential democratic principles that unite all free people,” including “the freedom to worship as one chooses.”
Read more
The Biden administration has allocated $68 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine since February, with the White House asking Congress last month for an additional $38 billion. Should Congress oblige, the US will have appropriated more than $100 billion of taxpayer money for Kiev in less than a year.
With the exception of some of former President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill, Republicans have overwhelmingly backed successive multibillion-dollar aid packages. Like his father, Trump Jr. has insisted that this money would be better spent at home than on propping up Zelensky’s regime.
“A small fraction… of your tax dollars sent to Ukraine could have completed Trump’s Border Wall solving a humanitarian crisis, a sex trafficking crisis, a drug trafficking crisis, [and] a human trafficking crisis but DC pols had no interest in fixing that!” he complained in July.
