"There is no moral equivalence between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America. The country that Ronald Reagan used to call a shining city on a hill," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said from the Senate floor.

He added that to "allege some kind of moral equivalence between the two is either terribly misinformed or incredibly biased. Neither, neither can be accurate in any way."

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Though the Arizona Republican, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, didn't specifically mention Trump, his speech comes amid bipartisan backlash over a recent Fox News interview with the president.

Trump pushed back on Bill O'Reilly's characterization of Putin as “a killer,” on Sunday. “There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?" Trump said.

Vice President Pence, a former congressman with close ties to Capitol Hill, has defended the president, noting he wasn't trying to make a "moral equivalency" between the two countries.

But Democrats have hounded Trump over the comments, arguing that Republicans would be pushing back more forcefully against a president from a different party.

"You may have some bromance with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin — I'll tell you right now, you should respect more of our country and our Constitution," Leahy, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said to Trump from the Senate floor.