Ben & Jerry’s Leftist Founder ‘Joins’ Team Trump Against Helping Ukraine

ANALYSIS – Until recently, the left has been fairly united behind Joe Biden's blank-check approach toward helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia's invasion. Or if there were critics, they stayed quiet.

Until now.

Per my recent pieces on former President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, most of the pushback on Ukraine has come from the Trumpian wing of the Republican Party.

Rep. Matt Gaetz also argues that Washington is overspending in defending Ukraine.

Some of the criticism of Biden's approach is justified – some of it less so. (RELATED: Is GOP Rep. Marjorie Greene Dangerously Uninformed On Russia – Or Just Playing Politics?)

But now, part of the far-left of the Democrat Party, associated with self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, is coming out against the U.S. funding and providing weapons for Ukraine's defense.

It was only a matter of time before the anti-war left broke ranks with Biden.

But now, these conservative Trumpian Republicans have strange bedfellows.

The new anti-Ukraine war effort's ‘top donor' is Ben Cohen, the Ben & Jerry's ice-cream mogul and long-time Bernie Sanders campaigner. (RELATED: Ben & Jerry's Supply Chain Allegedly Uses Migrant Child Labor)

The effort, Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), has been pushing the narrative that the U.S. is spending too much money on helping defend Ukraine.

The effort falls under the aptly named leftist group, the People's Power Initiative, led and funded by Cohen. He has reportedly given more than $1 million to the group via the Ben Cohen Charitable Trust, according to public records and The Daily Beast.

Sounding more Republican than socialist, The Daily Beast notes one of their lines of argument:

Email blasts to reporters from EMN included the claim during the debt ceiling crisis that spending on Ukraine was so high that the U.S. government may have to default on its basic duty to pay the salaries of members of the military and to cut social security and pension checks. The message included a quote from EMN's associate director, Matthew Hoh, a former State Department staffer and Marine Corps captain, who said: “The outrageous federal spending on the Ukraine war is missing from the discussion on the national debt… It's time to think about pausing funding for Ukraine if we cannot afford it.”

This could help them gain support among independents as well as anti-Ukraine Republicans. But later, the group's true motivations became clearer.

Sounding more honest, and socialist, Fritz admitted, in reference to Cohen: “We do feel that our military budget is too large in some ways, and he believes that if we just target our budget on what we actually need, then we buy more social programs for the United States of America, more social programs that people might also need in Ukraine.”

And adding to the typical far-left anti-American nonsense, The Daily Beast reported that Fritz said he preferred China's ‘non-interventionist' approach to foreign policy. “I say we Americans have to stop being arrogant,” he said. (RELATED: US And China Compete With Military Ties And Bases In Philippines And Cambodia)

When you say idiotic things like this, you lose all credibility.

The news outlet adds:

The EMN project promotes a group of U.S. military veterans as experts and pundits willing to talk about the war in Ukraine. Some of them have been echoing Kremlin propaganda lines by claiming that U.S. military support for Ukraine is extending and intensifying the fighting, and suggesting that NATO expansion was one of the causes of the war. “We gave Putin just cause,” the director of EMN, Dennis Fritz, told The Daily Beast in an interview.

This is partly valid, pushed by some conservatives, but also overplayed.

Defending yourself always prolongs wars – until you win or force a ceasefire. And no matter what NATO did or didn't do in allowing independent, sovereign countries to join its club of democracies, it doesn't justify an invasion for conquest.

When asked about his role in funding the group, Cohen told The Daily Beast: “I think the U.S. should use its power to negotiate an end to the war, not prolong the death and destruction by supplying more weapons.”

So, there we are. The socialist far-left and the Trumpian right are now partly joined in their anti-Ukraine agenda.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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