In just three weeks, President Donald Trump has exploded long-standing U.S. foreign policy and sided with Russia against Ukraine and the rest of NATO. He sent American diplomats to open negotiations with Russian counterparts—without inviting Kyiv to participate. He falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, and echoed the Kremlin line by calling Ukrainian President Zelensky a “dictator.” Then, in a press conference on Monday, Trump declined to say the same of Putin. “I don’t use those words lightly,” he told a reporter.

Most Republicans strongly condemned Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and have voted on multiple occasions to send the country military aid. But with their party’s leader back in the White House, many of them have grown quiet. Are any GOP lawmakers willing to say, in plain terms, what is true?

I reached out to all 271 Republican members of the House and Senate to find out, asking each of them two straightforward questions: Did Russia invade Ukraine? And is Putin a dictator? So far, I have received 19 responses.

Some members were unambiguous: “Yes and yes,” a spokesperson for Senator Susan Collins of Maine replied in an email. “Vladimir is undisputedly an enemy of America and a dictator,” read part of the statement from the office of Representative Jeff Hurd of Colorado.

Others chose to send excerpts of previous non-answer statements or links to past TV interviews rather than answer either “yes” or “no.” A spokesperson for the GOP’s House leader, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, replied only with a readout of Johnson’s praise for Trump’s deal-making prowess. A spokesperson for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas replied with a link to an interaction with ChatGPT in which the chatbot noted that Cruz had in 2022 acknowledged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and did in 2020 call Putin a dictator. (Still, no straightforward “yes” from Cruz today.)

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Representative Brian Mast of Florida, opted to stake out a position that seemed different from Trump’s: The panel posted a screenshot of our questions on X, with the caption: “ON THE RECORD: Russia invaded Ukraine & Putin is a dictator. But that doesn’t mean our European allies shouldn’t match Russian military spending & recruitment.” (Another post referred to our questions as “BS.”) The Atlantic followed up to ask whether this statement represented Mast’s personal view, but received no further response.

Others refused to answer entirely: “Does the Atlantic believe we’re here to answer gotcha questions to advance narrow opinion journalism?” Jonathan Wilcox, communications director for Representative Darrell Issa of California, said in an email.

In fact, it is clearly in the public interest to know how elected officials, particularly those who make decisions about national security, regard foreign powers that have long positioned themselves against the United States. And it is also clearly in the public interest for citizens to know if their representatives’ views have shifted on who is—or is not—a foreign adversary.

What follows is the full list of responses from every Republican member of Congress. It will be regularly updated with any additional responses.

Lawmakers Who Answered the Questions

Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska: A spokesperson pointed to a statement on X from Bacon on February 19, in which he said: “Putin started this war. Putin committed war crimes. Putin is the dictator who murdered his opponents. The EU nations have contributed more to Ukraine. Zelensky polls over 50%. Ukraine wants to be part of the West, Putin hates the West. I don’t accept George Orwell’s doublethink.”

Representative Michael Baumgartner of Washington: “The Congressman expressed all his thoughts on the Russia-Ukraine War to the Spokane-Review on February 19. He was very clear that Russia and Vladimir Putin were the aggressors of the war in Ukraine,” a spokesman said, adding this link.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine: “As Senator Collins has said multiple times, yes and yes,” a spokesperson said.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas: A spokesperson shared this link, pointing to earlier statements the senator had made about Putin and the Ukraine war.

Senator John Curtis of Utah: A spokesperson pointed to Curtis’s bipartisan resolution supporting Ukraine and a February 25 interview on KSL NewsRadio, in which Curtis said, “Ukraine was invaded by a dictator.”

Representative Julie Fedorchak of North Dakota: “Yes, Vladimir Putin and Russia invaded Ukraine and yes, he is a dictator,” the representative told me. “This war has cost countless lives and destabilized the world. I believe President Trump has the strength and leadership to bring peace and restore stability in a way that puts America’s interests first.”

Representative Jeff Hurd of Colorado: “Did Russia invade Ukraine? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an unprovoked act of war. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a dictator? Vladimir is undisputedly an enemy of America and a dictator. It is dishonorable and wrong not to stand up against the tyranny of Putin,” a spokesperson said.

Representative Young Kim of California: “Yes to both,” a spokesperson said.

Representative Brian Mast of Florida: A spokesperson for Mast sent a link to a post on X from the House Foreign Affairs Committee calling The Atlantic’s inquiry “BS” and declaring it would cancel its subscription to our magazine. “ON THE RECORD: Russia invaded Ukraine & Putin is a dictator. But that doesn’t mean our European allies shouldn’t match Russian military spending & recruitment. Europe must realize that for our alliance to be the strongest in history, America needs a Europe that can hold its own.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: A spokesperson sent a link to a statement in which the senator said that Russia launched an “unprovoked war on Ukraine.” The spokesperson added: “And yes, she does believe that Vladimir Putin is a dictator.”

Representative Austin Scott of Georgia: “Russia invaded Ukraine and is the aggressor in this war,” the representative told me. “Putin is a dictator who has invaded Ukraine multiple times—this war would end today if he would pull his troops back into Russia.”

Senator Todd Young of Indiana: “Yes and yes,” a spokesperson said.

Lawmakers Who Responded But Did Not Directly Answer the Questions

Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas: A spokesman provided a link to an interview with Piers Morgan in which Crenshaw cautioned against returning to a pre-World War II order allowing “dictators to conquer other countries and take their stuff.”

Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio: A spokesperson said the representative declined to comment.

Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa: “Like all Americans, Ernst wants to see an end to Putin’s unjust war that has cost far too many lives,” a spokesperson said

Representative French Hill of Arkansas: A spokesperson did not address the question of whether Putin is a dictator, but sent a link to an Arkansas PBS interview in which the representative said, “this war was started by Vladimir Putin,” and that “Ukraine has to be at the table” for any peace deal

Representative Darrell Issa of California: A spokesperson said, “Does the Atlantic believe we’re here to answer gotcha questions to advance narrow opinion journalism?”

Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana: A spokesperson sent over Johnson’s recent comments during this week’s GOP leadership press conference about Trump’s dealmaking skills and his desire for peace in Ukraine, but did not answer either question directly.

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama: A spokesperson did not answer directly but sent a link to an interview with Newsmax, in which the senator said, “President Trump is not a Putin apologist. He just wants to get the war over with.”

Senate Republicans Who Have Not Responded

Jim Banks
John Barrasso
Marsha Blackburn
John Boozman
Katie Britt
Ted Budd
Shelley Moore Capito
Bill Cassidy
John Cornyn
Tom Cotton
Kevin Cramer
Mike Crapo
Steve Daines
Deb Fischer
Lindsay Graham
Charles Grassley
Bill Hagerty
Josh Hawley
John Hoeven
Jon Husted
Cindy Hyde-Smith
Ron Johnson
Jim Justice
John Neely Kennedy
James Lankford
Mike Lee
Cynthia Lummis
Roger Marshall
Mitch McConnell
Dave McCormick
Ashley Moody
Jerry Moran
Bernie Moreno
Markwayne Mullin
Rand Paul
Pete Ricketts
James Risch
Mike Rounds
Eric Schmitt
Rick Scott
Tim Scott
Tim Sheehy
Dan Sullivan
John Thune
Thom Tillis
Roger Wicker

House Republicans Who Have Not Responded

Robert Aderholt
Mark Alford
Rick Allen
Mark Amodei
Jodey Arrington
Brian Babin
James Baird
Troy Balderson
Andy Barr
Tom Barrett
Aaron Bean
Nick Begich
Cliff Bentz
Jack Bergman
Stephanie Bice
Andy Biggs
Sheri Biggs
Gus Bilirakis
Lauren Boebert
Mike Bost
Josh Brecheen
Rob Bresnahan
Vern Buchanan
Tim Burchett
Eric Burlison
Ken Calvert
Kat Cammack
Mike Carey
John Carter
Earl Buddy Carter
Juan Ciscomani
Ben Cline
Michael Cloud
Andrew Clyde
Tom Cole
Mike Collins
James Comer
Eli Crane
Jeff Crank
Eric Rick Crawford
Monica De La Cruz
Scott DesJarlais
Mario Diaz-Balart
Byron Donalds
Troy Downing
Neal Dunn
Beth Van Duyne
Chuck Edwards
Jake Ellzey
Tom Emmer
Ron Estes
Gabe Evans
Mike Ezell
Pat Fallon
Randy Feenstra
Brad Finstad
Michelle Fischbach
Scott Fitzgerald
Brian Fitzpatrick
Charles Chuck Fleischmann
Mike Flood
Vince Fong
Virginia Foxx
Scott Franklin
Russell Fry
Russ Fulcher
Andrew Garbarino
Brandon Gill
Carlos Gimenez
Craig Goldman
Tony Gonzales
Lance Gooden
Paul Gosar
Sam Graves
Mark Green
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Morgan Griffith
Glenn Grothman
Michael Guest
Brett Guthrie
Harriet Hageman
Abe Hamadeh
Mike Haridopolos
Pat Harrigan
Andy Harris
Mark Harris
Diana Harshbarger
Kevin Hern
Clay Higgins
Ashley Hinson
Erin Houchin
Richard Hudson
Bill Huizenga
Wesley Hunt
Brian Jack
Ronny Jackson
John James
Dusty Johnson
Jim Jordan
David Joyce
John Joyce
Thomas Kean
Mike Kelly
Trent Kelly
Mike Kennedy
Jennifer Kiggans
Kevin Kiley
Brad Knott
David Kustoff
Darin LaHood
Nick LaLota
Doug LaMalfa
Nicholas Langworthy
Robert Latta
Michael Lawler
Laurel Lee
Julia Letlow
Barry Loudermilk
Frank Lucas
Anna Paulina Luna
Morgan Luttrell
Nancy Mace
Ryan Mackenzie
Nicole Malliotakis
Celeste Maloy
Tracey Mann
Thomas Massie
Michael McCaul
Lisa McClain
Tom McClintock
Richard McCormick
Addison McDowell
John McGuire
Mark Messmer
Daniel Meuser
Carol Miller
Mary Miller
Max Miller
Mariannette Miller-Meeks
Cory Mills
John Moolenaar
Barry Moore
Blake Moore
Riley Moore
Tim Moore
Nathaniel Moran
Greg Murphy
Troy Nehls
Dan Newhouse
Ralph Norman
Zach Nunn
Jay Obernolte
Andrew Ogles
Bob Onder
Burgess Owens
Gary Palmer
Scott Perry
August Pfluger
Guy Reschenthaler
Hal Rogers
Mike Rogers
John Rose
David Rouzer
Chip Roy
Michael Rulli
John Rutherford
Maria Elvira Salazar
Steve Scalise
Derek Schmidt
David Schweikert
Keith Self
Pete Sessions
Jefferson Shreve
Michael Simpson
Adrian Smith
Christopher Smith
Jason Smith
Lloyd Smucker
Victoria Spartz
Pete Stauber
Elise Stefanik
Bryan Steil
Greg Steube
Dale Strong
Marlin Stutzman
Dave Taylor
Claudia Tenney
Glenn GT Thompson
Thomas Tiffany
William Timmons
Mike Turner
David Valadao
Jefferson Van Drew
Derrick Van Orden
Ann Wagner
Tim Walberg
Randy Weber
Daniel Webster
Bruce Westerman
Roger Williams
Joe Wilson
Tony Wied
Robert Wittman
Steve Womack
Rudy Yakym
Ryan Zinke

With additional research and reporting by Amogh Dimri, Marc Novicoff, Gisela Salim-Peyer, and Annie Joy Williams.

The ad that Hims & Hers Health plans to air during the Super Bowl comes at you with rapid-fire visual overload—a giant jiggling belly, bare feet on scales, X-ray results, sugary sodas, a pie in the oven, a measuring tape snug around a waistline—all set to the frenetic hip-hop beat of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” A disembodied voice warns: “This system wasn’t built to help us. It was built to keep us sick and stuck.” The Super Bowl spot is a strikingly dark, politicized way of getting at the company’s latest initiative: selling weight-loss drugs to both women and men. The ad also marks a pivot for the telehealth company colloquially known as Hims, which rose to prominence just under a decade ago, slickly marketing hair-loss treatments and erectile-dysfunction drugs to men.

Since Hims’s founding in 2017, the company has been pointing toward a very particular future, one in which the word patient is interchangeable with customer. The Hims brand has primed people to view both their everyday health and the natural-aging processes as problems that can be tweaked and optimized—as if it were peddling operating-system updates for the human body. Now, as the national mood and the business environment shift, Hims’s message is undergoing its own reboot.

Catering to male anxiety can carry a company a long way: If you’re a man in your 30s, as I am, ads featuring Hims’s signature branding—a hip font on a bright background—have become inescapable across Instagram and Facebook. Hims sells all manner of pills, supplements, shampoos, sprays, and serums. Central to the Hims pitch is the fact that many people, especially younger men, avoid regularly going to the doctor; a recent Cleveland Clinic survey found that less than a third of Millennial and Gen Z men receive annual physicals. Hims markets the telehealth experience as a welcome alternative. After filling out an online intake form and communicating with a licensed provider from its partner group about hair loss, for example, you might be prescribed a Hims-branded chewable. One such offering, advertised at $35 or more a month, contains minoxidil, a medication that first hit the market in the 1980s as Rogaine, combined with finasteride, which most people know as Propecia, plus supplements.

On platforms such as Instagram, under the logic of targeted advertising, if you linger over an ad for one hair-growth supplement, similar ads will follow. In my daily tapping and scrolling through the app, Hims ads began to appear everywhere—and eventually got in my head. Some time last year, my self-interrogation started: How long has my hairline had that peak? Was my forehead always that … giant?

“The job of marketing is to influence behavior, and sometimes that means identifying problems that you may not know that you have, or underlying insecurities that may prevent you from losing social currency down the road,” Marcus Collins, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan, told me. A former advertising executive, Collins said that he, too, had been bombarded by Hims ads. He could see how Hims was trying to “elevate itself from being a shortcut that represents a hair-loss solution to being a solution for masculinity, to being an outlet for him, for what it means for manliness.”

In December, after my dermatologist examined my scalp during an annual skin screening, I sheepishly asked her about Hims. She rolled her eyes. When we moved to discussing treatment options, she also warned me that a potential side effect of using oral finasteride for hair growth is decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, or both.

After a few minutes of discussion, a topical solution seemed like a better bet than the pill. But there is nothing special about Hims itself. “If you want, I can just call in a minoxidil-finasteride solution to your pharmacy,” my doctor said. “It’ll be cheaper.” She saw me as her patient, not an e-commerce shopper. Still, the fact that I asked about Hims at all made me feel like the company’s pervasive marketing was working on me. One minute, I was reporting, checking out Hims-branded biotin gummies; the next minute, I was practically at the checkout, ordering some myself.

When I spoke with Mike Chi, Hims’s chief commercial officer, he leaned hard into words such as normalization and empower. I told him that the constant barrage of Hims ads had made me feel almost bullied into doing something about my hair. Chi disagreed with my characterization but acknowledged the high volume of the company’s ads. The goal of its campaigns, though, was “to create an emotional connection with a customer,” he said. “And to create that personal connection with a customer, we often have to have varied messaging to find the way in that connects with them.”

Even though Hims’s ubiquitous stuff-for-dudes marketing campaign has proved effective at tapping into male insecurity, treating masculine vulnerabilities with generic drugs has its commercial limits, and Hims faces growing competition in the space. A company called Ro (formerly Roman) has a model similar to Hims’s; Amazon has an online pharmacy and telehealth business. In the past several years, Hims has steadily expanded its business into a broader array of treatments for both men and women: antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication—and, as the Super Bowl spot indicates, weight-loss drugs that include a version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. Semaglutide is currently on the FDA drug-shortage list, a status that allows Hims and other companies to sell their own compounded versions. (The makers of Ozempic are urging the FDA to declare an end to the semaglutide shortage.) Going down the compounded glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) path is a bold gambit for Hims. The market for a monthly supply of hair-growth or erectile-dysfunction pills is limited to men in certain age brackets, but the perpetual quest for thinness and hotness transcends demographics.  

By some measures, Hims’s expansion has been successful. The company has accumulated more than 2 million regular customers and achieved a market cap of $9 billion. Last February, the company announced its first profitable quarter. Marketing accounted for 45 percent of Hims’s operating expenses during last year’s third quarter. Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told me that such a percentage is “absolutely high” when it comes to typical marketing costs in a successful operation. “And it’s not sustainable, either,” he added. “A lot of people do question [the company’s] long-term viability,” he said, but he also commended Hims for “rolling with the times.”

Although Hims’s stock has gone up 65 percent in the past month, investment experts seem split over the reason. Some appear confident in the value of the company’s prospects. Others, such as the CNBC host Jim Cramer, suspect that Hims’s surging stock price is the effect of a “short squeeze,” in which speculators’ bet on a future steep decline temporarily boosts the share price.

Even the Super Bowl ad carries pitfalls for Hims. On Friday, Senators Dick Durbin, a Democrat, and Roger Marshall, a Republican, sent a letter to acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner stating that Hims’s “Sick of the System” commercial “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information” about an injectable weight-loss medication that appears in the ad. In response, a Hims spokesperson told me in an email, “We are complying with existing law and are looking forward to continuing working with Congress and the new Administration to fix the broken health system.” The person went on to imply that the company’s critics are defending the status quo. “The ad calls out industries that are part of a system that fails to prioritize the health of Americans,” the spokesperson said. “And now these industries are asking to shut the ad down.”

Hims is now doing business in a world where a concept such as “Make America healthy again” has rapidly migrated from a fringe political movement to the center of government. And although MAHA purists might shun pharmaceutical solutions, some potential customers might be sympathetic to Hims’s claim of being an ally against “the system.” The one-note, full-volume message in the Hims Super Bowl spot is that everything is rigged against you—keeping you overweight, making you unhealthy—and that you’re right to be mad about that.

The company could be betting that in a political moment when talk of needing more “masculine energy” is playing an outsize part, this vibe shift in its marketing strategy will help it reach an even bigger audience. Hims has done well selling its own recipes for masculine energy; now it figures it can do even better pushing remedies to help you take back control from the elites and make you feel great again. It’s audacious, possibly cynical, and probably very effective.