Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of manipulating President Donald Trump, telling CNN that the Kremlin leader is “playing President Trump like a fiddle” and warning that history will judge America harshly if Putin gets his way in Ukraine.
Tillis made the remarks Monday on CNN’s “OutFront,” according to Breitbart News, which published a transcript of the segment. His comments came the same day Trump described Russia’s conduct in Ukraine in strikingly mild terms.
A first-hand account from Ukraine
Tillis opened by describing what he said he witnessed during a recent trip to the country, painting a grim picture of the war’s toll on civilians.
“I saw the devastation. I saw what this murderer Vladimir Putin has ordered,” Tillis said. He described hearing accounts of women raped in front of their husbands before the husbands were killed, and of schools forced to operate in subway stations because they cannot safely meet above ground.
The senator said he also spoke with people who had fled Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and described a campaign to convince residents they were “de-Nazifying Ukraine.” Tillis pointed to the irony of that framing, noting Ukraine has a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
‘Putin is lying’
From there, Tillis turned sharply toward the White House’s posture toward Moscow.
“Russians are lying. Putin is lying. Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle, and history is not going to look good on an America that failed to rise up and defend the Western world, if Putin actually gets his way,” he said.
Tillis also took aim at the idea of a summit bringing together Trump, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling it nonsensical given the interests of the two authoritarian governments.
“I believe that a summit with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, two countries who want to overwhelm the world, is absurd,” he said.
Pressed on Trump’s comments
Host Erin Burnett then read back a comment from Trump that day, in which the president said Russia “frankly, has been fine on Ukraine” and that “they haven’t been doing much,” adding that the same applied to China. She asked Tillis how he squares that with his own assessment.
Tillis responded by questioning the premise that Putin has been restrained.
“He is a murderer and not doing a lot, what does that mean? He only killed 20 or 30 people a day versus a thousand?” Tillis said. “I mean, my God, one life is too many at the hands of Vladimir Putin, and President Trump should know better.”
The split is a notable one for a Republican senator speaking publicly about a Republican president’s approach to Russia, and it lands as the administration weighs its next moves on the war. Tillis, who has been among the more vocal GOP critics of Moscow, used the interview to argue that the stakes extend beyond Ukraine’s borders.
His warning about America’s place in history was pointed: a failure to stand with the Western world, he suggested, would be remembered poorly. He did not elaborate on what specific policy steps he believes the administration should take, at least not in the portion of the interview reported by Breitbart.
The White House has not publicly responded to Tillis’s remarks as reported.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/10/20/sen-tillis-putin-is-playing-president-trump-like-a-fiddle/