Sen. Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph LeahyBattle over timing complicates Democratic shutdown strategy Hillicon Valley: Russia 'amplifying' concerns around mail-in voting to undermine election | Facebook and Twitter take steps to limit Trump remarks on voting | Facebook to block political ads ahead of election Top Democrats press Trump to sanction Russian individuals over 2020 election interference efforts MORE (D-Vt.) called out President Trump's apparent comparison between the United States and Russia Monday night, arguing he should respect America more.

"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.

Trump sparked backlash in a weekend interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, when he pushed back on O'Reilly's characterization of Putin as “a killer.”

“There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?" Trump said.

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"Where are you?" Schumer asked his GOP colleagues. "You know if a Democrat said it, you’d be just howling at the moon. Rightfully so. And here, I don’t hear much."

Leahy separately said Trump was trying "to excuse the assassinations ... carried out in Russia against journalists or those who disagree with Putin by saying that's no different than our country."

Vice President Pence has defended Trump, noting the president wasn't trying to make a "moral equivalency" between the two countries.

Leahy also knocked Trump's comments targeting Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge who slapped a nationwide halt on Trump's executive order barring immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries from temporarily entering the U.S.

On Sunday, Trump said the federal judge and the court would be to blame “if something happens” while his executive order is on hold.

"I was shocked this weekend when for the second time the president of the United States tried to demean the federal judiciary, tried to downgrade an individual federal judge because he disagreed with him," Leahy said.

Senators in both parties distanced themselves from Trump last year when he questioned if a judge overseeing lawsuits against Trump University could be unbiased because of his Mexican heritage.