Susan Rice Calls Trump A 'Surrender Monkey' For Trying To Appease Putin On Ukraine

Former U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice delivered a damning critique Thursday of Donald Trump and his foreign policy agenda for aiming to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin during the ongoinginvasion of Ukraine.

“The fundamentals of national security — that America needs to be strong, that we need to stand with our allies, we need to stand for our values, we have to mean what we say … never used to be under serious question,” she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.

“And along comes Donald Trump, who really is like the Neville Chamberlain of the Republican Party,” Rice continued. “He’s an appeaser. He’s a surrender monkey. And that’s what we’re seeing in his approach to Ukraine.”

Chamberlain exercised a policy of “appeasement” during his tenure as British prime minister in the years leading up to World War II, in a failed attempt to prevent Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler from expanding German control of Europe and waging war on the United Kingdom.

Trump has long been accused of having a curious relationship with Putin and recently refused to endorse a Ukrainian victory over Russia.

“We’ve seen him fold to blandishments from Xi Jinping and many others when it was convenient for him and served his personal interests,” Rice told O’Donnell, referring to the many instances in which Trump has praised the Chinese president from the White House.

“So that is why more than 700 Democrats, Republicans and Independents — very senior national security leaders — came together to oppose Donald Trump and support [Vice President] Kamala Harris,” she continued, referring to an open letter published last month.

The document was signed by current and former defense officials, including former defense secretaries Chuck Hagel and