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John Hickenlooper: “Putin is a dictator, not President Zelensky.”

Featuring: John Hickenlooper, Democratic | U.S. Senate from Colorado

Virtual Town Hall with Senator Hickenlooper and Janine Davidson on National Issues

Published March 12, 2025 | Video Starts at 37:29

I mean, I'm looking at my father and mother in heaven, and they would be so disappointed in our country. I mean, the simple truth here, what's important. Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin is a dictator, not President Zelensky. The Trump administration wants to convince the American people that Ukraine is the aggressor, while it's Russia that so badly wants peace. In Trump's mind, peace equals a permanent victory for Putin and Russia. (37:29–37:34)

CLAIM

Asserts that Putin is a dictator, contrasting him with President Zelensky.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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John Hickenlooper

“They fired over 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees.”
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“They fired another 2,300 workers from the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Indian Affairs.”
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“Trump has already fired 6,000 veterans who are dedicated public servants.”
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“The House budget resolution calls on the committee that oversees Medicaid to cut $880 billion from their budget.”
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“60% of the seniors in nursing homes are able to be there because they're covered by Medicaid.”
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“The news that the Trump administration is planning to fire 80,000 staff from the Veterans Administration is beyond words.”
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“Roughly 30% of the federal workers are veterans.”
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“California, where they just lost over $250 billion from the recent wildfires alone.”
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“70% of the benefits from the Inflation Reduction act are these investments are going into red states, not blue states.”
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“Real opponents of democracy have won elections and they're attacking every level of our government.”
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“We've watched President Trump propose deep cuts to Medicaid to fund tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.”
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“The Republican's budget is a blatant attempt to strip critical services like Medicaid from Americans to fund tax breaks for the…”
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“President Trump is firing workers across government with no plan, leaving our national parks, our veterans, even our weather services in the…”
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“Colorado roads, bridges, airports, modernized through the bipartisan infrastructure law.”
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“The PACT act expanded health care for our veterans to a larger extent than ever before in history.”
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“The Inflation Reduction act is cutting energy costs, creating jobs, and driving the clean energy transition.”
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“The House Republicans passed a, so called a continuing resolution to fund the government through September. They put together this bill…”
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“They want to give Trump unchecked control over our nation's spending.”
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“Congress holds the power of the purse.”
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“This bill would wipe out congressional oversight, letting Trump cut and redirect funding however he wants.”
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“We have bipartisan appropriation bills that have been negotiated, came out of their committees with bipartisan majorities.”
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“Our strategy to fight back against the Trump administration's effort to. Well, they're trying to dismantle the federal government.”
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“Congress is granted the power of the purse in the Constitution.”
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“Many of Trump's cuts to funding passed by Congress are by any measure unconstitutional.”
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“There are currently something like 100 ongoing legal challenges to the Trump administration policies, and about 41 of those rulings have…”
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“Last week, the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump's request to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid.”
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“The Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to comply with the lower court order to unfreeze the federal funds.”
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“Republicans may have a majority in both houses of Congress, but it is slim.”
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“There are something like 50 districts where Republicans are vulnerable.”
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“In 2023, outdoor recreation economy generated... maybe it's more than $17 billion for Colorado's economy.”
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“Outdoor recreation... employed... 130,000 Coloradans.”
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“Coloradans overwhelmingly support protecting our public lands... 75, 80, sometimes 85% of voters.”
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“We've got a million Coloradans that are enrolled in either Medicaid or CHIP.”
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“President Trump says he wants to rid the government of fraud and abuse, but this budget would balloon our national debt by over $4 trillion.”
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“The average tax benefit for people who make less than $400,000 a year is about $400.”
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“He's going to have to cut $880 billion from the budget. That means coming after Medicaid.”
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“He's going to balloon our deficit to $4 trillion.”
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“I don't support any cuts of any kind to our central social safety net programs, especially Social Security.”
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“Two thirds of Americans say the government is spending too little on Social Security.”
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“87% of Americans agree that Social Security should be a priority for the nation.”
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“The Trump administration continues to allege that they're not going to make any cuts to Social Security, to Medicaid, to Medicare.”
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“We went over all 24,500 rules and regulations and we either eliminated 11,000 of them or dramatically simplified them.”
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“The Trump administration halted all federal grants and loans.”
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“Head Start, truly vital Service for over 9,000 low income kids in Colorado, they probably have to shutter their operations.”
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“Meals on Wheels serves 25,000 seniors.”
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“Colorado rural hospitals and clinics that serve and deploy our rural neighbors would have been left out in the cold.”
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“The funding was already appropriated by Congress on a bipartisan basis.”
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“It's in the Constitution that that right belongs to Congress.”
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“The Supreme Court ruled against the administration on freezing foreign aid.”
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“Russia invaded Ukraine.”
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“Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed or wounded.”
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“President Trump has weakened U.S. leadership in NATO.”
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“There is still tremendous bipartisan support for Ukraine.”
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“There are at least 20 Republicans that previously were outspoken in their belief that we should be supporting Ukraine.”
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“A broad bipartisan Senate majority supported the PACT act, which allowed veterans who'd been around these toxic burn pits throughout the…”
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“This is important in Colorado because we're the proud home of over 400,000 veterans.”
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“I think we are the highest density of veterans in the country.”
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“The PACT act, like I said, it's advanced care to over a million veterans.”
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“We introduced an amendment during the reconciliation process, which, of course, they ignored.”
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“Colorado is one of the leading science states in the country.”
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“Funding for things like medical research through the NIH or climate research at NOAA, why it's so important.”
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“NOAA's a huge part of being able to track this, this, this worsening drought we've been dealing with for the last 20 years.”
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“We've invested millions in Colorado, created over 400,000 jobs across the country.”
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