Sen. Todd Young, Indiana Republican, revealed Thursday that he does not intend to support Donald Trump for president in 2024, a significant change that comes the morning after a televised town hall with the ex-president.
Mr. Young, who once had a close relationship with Mr. Trump as the former head of the Senate Republican’s campaign arm, suggested Mr. Trump’s controversial remarks on Russia’s war against Ukraine were among the leading factors for his decision.
“I think President Trump’s judgement is wrong in this case. President Putin and his government have engaged in war crimes. I don’t believe that’s disputed,” Mr. Young, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters. “I don’t intend to support him for the Republican nomination.”
Pressed as to why, Mr. Young responded: “Where do I begin?”
During a roughly 70-minute town-hall meeting Wednesday evening on CNN, Mr. Trump refused to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal, stating that such a designation just makes a negotiated peace harder to achieve.
Instead, the 2024 White House hopeful called the Russian leader a “smart guy” who “made a tremendous mistake.”
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“If you say he’s a war criminal, it’s going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to make this thing stopped,” Mr. Trump said. “If he’s going to be a war criminal, people are going to grab him and execute him, he’s going to fight a lot harder than he’s fighting under the other circumstance.”
He declined to say which side of the war he wants to prevail, telling the New Hampshire GOP primary voters in attendance that he only wants “everybody to stop dying.”
Mr. Trump said if voters reelect him, he would end the Russia-Ukraine war “in 24 hours.”
Mr. Young’s support for Mr. Trump soured after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The Indiana Republican said at the time that Mr. Trump bore responsibility.
Still, at least nine other GOP senators already have publicly endorsed Mr. Trump in the 2024 election.
Mr. Young did not specify whether he would vote for Mr. Trump if he wins the Republican nomination, but he advised the party against choosing him.
“You want a nominee to win the general election. As President Trump says, ’I prefer winners.’ He consistently loses,” Mr. Young continued. “In fact, he has a habit of losing not just his own elections, but losing elections for others.”
Mr. Young was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 2020 election cycle in which the GOP lost the Senate and the White House.
“I can’t think of someone worse equipped to bring people together and get our legislation passed and advance our collective values than the former president,” he said. “I don’t think conservatives would be well served by electing someone whose core competency seems to be owning someone on Twitter.”
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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