WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday joined CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash to discuss President Donald Trump’s meeting with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and the upcoming joint address to Congress.

Murphy explained why President Trump appears to be aligning himself with Vladimir Putin: “The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin…It appears as if America is trying to align itself with dictators. Donald Trump wants us to have our closest relationships with despots all around the world because that makes it easier for him to transition America into a kleptocratic oligarchy where Elon Musk and Donald Trump rule and steal from the American people. If we were allied with democracies, that would be harder. But if the United States’ closest partner is Russia, then it makes it a lot easier for Donald Trump, Elon, and their billionaire pals to steal from the American people, to steal our data, to steal our Medicare, to steal our Medicaid in order to enrich themselves.”

On the Trump-Zelensky meeting, Murphy said: “The back half of that meeting ended up just being the Kremlin literally driving the message of the White House. It is a sad day in America when we are getting closer and closer to Russia, a brutal dictatorship, and we are getting further and further away from democratic allies. Nobody in America wants that. People in America want that war to end, but they don't want it to end by handing the entirety of Ukraine to Russia and elevating the power of a dictator in the Kremlin.”

On President Trump’s upcoming joint address to Congress, Murphy said: “I think that State of the Union speech is going to be a farce. I think it's going to be a MAGA pep rally, not a serious talk to the nation. I think Donald Trump is going to spew a series of lies about his alignment with Russia, about what he's trying to do to allow Elon Musk to essentially monetize the American government to enrich Musk and his billionaire crowd. And I'm just not going to be a part of that.”

He continued: “Listen, the case I'm making to Democrats is that we have to fight every single day. Every single day. Republicans flood the zone. Democrats have to flood the zone. They flood the zone with lies. We flood the zone with truth. We are going to stop this billionaire takeover of government. We are going to stop their destruction of democracy, which they have to do, because what they are attempting to do – gut Medicaid in order to feed another set of tax cuts to Elon Musk and his billionaire friends – it’s unpopular. We're going to stop that billionaire takeover, that destruction of our democracy, only by fighting them every single day.”

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