Republicans slam Trump but back him for Senate acquittal

Leading Republicans took to the talk show circuit Sunday to defend their expected acquittal of US President Donald Trump at his Senate trial next week -- despite offering sharp criticism of his role in the Ukraine scandal.

The president was impeached in December for abuse of power over pressuring ally Kiev to announce investigations that would have helped him politically, including into Joe Biden, a leading challenger in this year's presidential ballot.

A day ahead of the Iowa Democratic caucuses -- the official start of the election season -- key Republican senators including Lamar Alexander and Joni Ernst said Trump's behavior was troubling but not impeachable.

"Hopefully he'll look at this and say, 'Okay, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have done it that way," Alexander told NBC.

The Tennessee senator suggested Trump had been naive in asking a foreign ally to look into Biden and his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine, which Republicans have claimed without evidence were corrupt.

But he added: "The bottom line: it's not an excuse. He shouldn't have done it."
"And we get to send a message at the ballot box that cheating, lying, involving a foreign country in our own domestic politics, not to mention abuse of power more broadly and bad administration, that that's not okay, that we can do better."
"But I'm not letting the senators off the hook. We're still going to go into the Senate this week and make the case why this president needs to be removed. It will be up to the senators to make that final judgment, and the senators will be held accountable for it."