For nearly 10 minutes on Sunday’s Meet the Press, a visibly exasperated Chuck Todd tried to maneuver Senator Ron Johnson into explaining why he “winced” when he learned of the Trump administration’s machinations to compel Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into Joe Biden. But instead of addressing the prompt, Johnson began parroting conspiracy theories and right wing talking points about Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election, at one point declaring that he didn’t trust the FBI or CIA. “Why a Fox News conspiracy, propaganda stuff is popping up on here, I have no idea,” the frustrated MSNBC host told Johnson.

Democratic senator Chris Murphy was frustrated too. Joining Todd shortly after the interview with Johnson, the Connecticut lawmaker said he considers Johnson a “good friend,” but was exasperated by Republican attempts to cover for Donald Trump. Johnson “just [gave] a giant greenlight to the president of the United States to continue to solicit foreign interference in U.S. elections,” he said.

Murphy knows a thing or two about election interference, being a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So on Monday we spoke with him on the phone to get his unabridged thoughts about the Ukraine scandal, the cravenness of the Republican Party, and Trump’s most recent hair-raising foreign policy operation in Syria. Herewith, a lightly edited version of our conversation.

Vanity Fair: On Sunday, you appeared on Meet the Press shortly after an interview with Senator Ron Johnson. The juxtaposition between your two framings of the Ukraine episode was quite stark. What has been your reaction to the Republican response we’ve seen, as displayed by Johnson?

Senator Chris Murphy: This is an incredibly serious moment for our democracy, and it is very scary to me that almost every Republican in Congress is choosing blind loyalty to the president over loyalty to the nation.

Had Richard Nixon come out and declared that he was going to continue breaking into Democratic campaign offices, there is no way that Republicans would have allowed him to continue in office. Today, it seems that there is nothing Trump can do—other than pull our troops out of the Middle East—that actually draws Republican opposition.

I think Trump is testing Republicans. Every appearance like that of Senator Johnson on Sunday is a permission slip for Trump to continue to integrate the White House with his reelection campaign.

You visited Ukraine in early September. Did that give you any insight into any quid pro quo between the Trump administration and the Ukrainian government?

I went to Ukraine, in part, because I was worried about a quid pro quo. There was open reporting that it was possible that the suspension of [military] aid was tied to this outstanding request from Rudy Giuliani to get the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens. I had heard that the Ukrainians were really worried that if they didn’t obey Giuliani’s demands that there would be consequences. I was there with Senator Johnson, we went and saw President Zelensky. He raised, at the beginning of the meeting, his concerns about the security aid being shut down.

He did not, in that very public meeting, say to us that it was because of his refusal to accede to Giuliani’s request. But later in the meeting, I pointed out that it would be very bad for Ukraine to be seen as interfering in the 2020 election. And he agreed, he agreed with me and gave me a very strong answer displaying his belief that Ukraine needed to stay out of American politics.