The explosive clash between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House on Friday has sparked a firestorm on Capitol Hill, pitting “America First” Republicans against Ukraine backers from both parties in the ferocious battle over the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Within minutes of the televised Oval Office skirmish, conservatives in both chambers were hailing Trump’s castigation of Zelensky while attacking the Ukrainian leader as an ingrate for challenging Trump’s recent shifts towards Russia.

“It was disrespectful and unbecoming of President Zelensky to disrespect the President and Vice-President of the United States on live television in our cherished Oval Office,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. “President Trump rightly pointed out the Russia/Ukraine war could lead to World War lll — this calls for diplomatic leadership not grandstanding and performative behavior on the world stage.”

Trump’s critics had diametrically different views, praising Zelensky’s resolve while accusing Trump of empowering America’s autocratic adversaries — specifically, Russian President Vladimir Putin — at the expense of democratic allies.

“Putin must be overjoyed with today’s theatrics,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wrote on her X account.

The dispute is just the latest piece of a much larger debate over America’s global role in protecting democracies against the creep of fascism and the growing influence of totalitarian regimes like those in Russia, China and Iran.

For decades, the GOP was practically defined by its embrace of a muscular foreign policy that favored American intervention around the globe in the name of promoting self-determination and free markets. Trump’s “America First” doctrine turned that orthodoxy on its head, promoting a more isolationist strategy designed to focus U.S. resources on domestic endeavors.

The battleground of Ukraine, where Russia........

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