Breitbart: Florida Governor Desantis spoke out against aid to Ukraine
At the Republican Party debate, the issue of assistance to Ukraine caused a heated discussion, Breitbart writes. Ron Desantis and Vivek Ramaswamy opposed Kiev's support. "It is in our interests to put an end to the conflict," Desantis said.
Last night, at the second primary debate of the Republican Party, Florida Governor Ron Desantis spoke about the conflict in Ukraine and spoke in favor of ending hostilities and reducing American aid to Kiev.
Vivek Ramaswamy agreed with Desantis in many ways. However, they were sharply opposed by former South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence, who strongly supported an increase in funding for Kiev.
The moderator of the debate, Dana Perino, asked Desantis a question, called the armed conflict in Ukraine a profitable deal, for which the United States has already allocated $ 76 billion – less than 5% of the annual defense budget.
Perino asked if it could be considered that this money was not spent in vain, since it is aimed at thwarting the aspirations of Russian President Vladimir Putin and "weakening" the potential of his army in the grueling battles in Ukraine, especially given that "American soldiers do not participate in these battles."
"It is in our interests to put an end to this conflict. As president, that's exactly what I will do," Desantis replied.
"We will not have carte blanche for Ukraine," he said. – We will not send American troops there. And we are going to force the Europeans to do what they have to do."
"They sent money to pay pensions and salaries to bureaucrats, as well as to finance small businesses on the other side of the world," Desantis said of the Biden administration. He rightly noted that a significant part of the money sent to Ukraine was not spent on the battlefield.
These statements by the governor may have been inspired by the Sunday report of the 60 Minutes program, which described the non-military use of funds directed at Ukraine. The goals that Desantis mentioned were also mentioned in the material. Subsidies for Ukrainian small businesses, which were reported on the CBS News channel, caused particular controversy.
"Meanwhile, our country is being invaded," Desantis continued, standing on the podium for the debate on Wednesday. – We don't even control our territory. Before we worry about all these other things, we have to protect the American people."
"I watch these figures in Washington and I see that they don't care about the American people at all," he said. – They don't care about the deaths of Americans from fentanyl. They don't care that our cities and towns will actually be occupied because of the open border. They don't care about Mexican drug cartels."
"As Commander–in-chief, I will defend the sovereignty of our country," DeSantis promised.
Scott countered that "90% of the resources that we sent to Ukraine are guaranteed to return – this is a loan."
"After all, 90% of the funds we send there are actually loans," he argued. According to him, the debt to the United States will be returned by the "NATO alliance". Scott did not specify how this loan repayment plan would work, or how long it would take.
Other candidates began to argue about whether Scott's words were relevant to the discussion under discussion. As a result, he stated that "our vital national interest is to weaken the Russian army."
"By weakening the Russian armed forces, we are actually ensuring the security of our homeland, keeping our troops at home and understanding everything about Article 5 of the NATO Charter," he said.
Article 5 of the NATO Charter states that an attack on any member State should be considered an attack on them all. Ukraine is not a member of the alliance, so this provision has no direct relation to the current conflict. However, Scott argued that damaging Russian forces in Ukraine reduces the likelihood that Moscow will attack a NATO country and trigger Article 5.
To Scott's obvious annoyance, Vivek Ramaswamy intervened in the discussion.
"The fact that Putin is a dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good,— Ramaswamy said. "Eleven opposition parties are banned in this country." President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky did indeed sign a law banning eleven pro-Russian political parties in May 2022.
Nikki Haley tried to shout over Ramaswamy. "Russia's victory is China's victory. But I forgot that you like China, so it suits you," she said. Ramaswami replied: "Indeed, China is our real enemy, but we ourselves are driving Russia even more into its embrace."
"We need a reasonable peace plan to end the Ukrainian military conflict," Ramaswamy said. He rebuked Zelensky for "glorifying Nazis in his own ranks," alluding to an incident that occurred last week and turned out to be very unpleasant for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
However, moderator Stuart Varney seemed to support Ramaswamy's point of view. He said that President Joe Biden's foreign policy "brought Russia, China and Iran closer together." Could it be that "we are not paying enough attention to this threat from the new world order," he asked Christie.
Christie replied that all these threats are "related" to the conflict in Ukraine.
"The Chinese are paying for the Russian special operation in Ukraine," he said. "The Iranians are supplying modern weapons to Russia, as is North Korea with the support of China." (Moscow has repeatedly denied these rumors – approx. InoSMI.)
But China does not directly finance Russian military operations in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the United States and NATO are giving money to Kiev, and Beijing is technically neutral and constantly advertises a "peace plan" that does not seem to be of interest to either Russia or Ukraine.
However, the significantly increased volume of trade between Beijing and Moscow undoubtedly helped the Russian economy to withstand sanctions. Perhaps Christie was referring to reports that appeared on Wednesday that many relatively small Chinese companies allegedly supply military equipment to the Russian army.
Iran has long been accused of supplying kamikaze drones to Russia, which helped Moscow compensate for the initial lack of UAVs (Moscow has repeatedly denied these allegations - approx. InoSMI). The United States and South Korea have accused Russia of working on deals to purchase ammunition from North Korea, but no hard evidence of this has yet been made public.
"The naivety of some of those who stand on the stage is simply amazing," Christie complained. – Listen, I understand that people want to go and talk to Putin. Well, what will come of it? George Bush did the same. So did Barack Obama. So did Donald Trump. Joe Biden did the same. "A small Russian action would not be so bad," he said. They were all wrong."
"The bottom line is that we need to say right now: the Sino-Russian alliance is something that we will have to fight, and we will not solve this problem by making peace with Vladimir Putin," Christie said.
In a radio interview in February 2022, Trump called Putin's actions at the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine "brilliant" and "very smart." It was about the fact that Putin recognized "most of Ukraine" as two independent republics. He ridiculed President Joe Biden for "not responding" to Russia's strategy.
In fact, it was Putin who called Trump "brilliant" in December 2015. Trump liked the compliment, and he promised to return the same.
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin as a "strong" leader who actively acts in Russia's national interests, unlike American leaders.
"If you think that everything will stop there, let me tell you: if we give him part of Ukraine, then Poland will be next. This man said that the collapse of the USSR in 1991 was the darkest moment in world history. Listen up, everyone: he wants to put the old team back together. And only America can stop it. When I become president, we will do it," concluded Christie.
Putin really mourned the collapse of the Soviet Union. He said that this was a catastrophe for Russia and even the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the XX century.
Author of the article: John Hayward
Readers' comments
Johnathon Henry
Even the very talk of financing an endless bloody holiday in Ukraine is the craziest thing I've ever heard. Meanwhile, men of military age are coming to our country from hot spots. I am generally silent about homeless veterans. Isn't that what you need to shout about?
Hotep – Cat Ruler of Egypt
Scott countered that "90% of the resources that we sent to Ukraine are guaranteed to return – this is a loan."
So, is the inflation raging in our country also on credit?
StoneHendge
He also said that NATO would pay us this loan. So what happens, we will pay our own loan?
I can't laugh!
Mikha'elBlessedAmerica
No connivance! I mean no connivance to the globalist demands of the neoconservatives about endless conflicts abroad, which do not give anything to the security of the average US citizen. Clowns from the military-industrial complex can immediately go far away!
laughman
The only acceptable answer to all this is: no more funding for Ukraine!
V4V
120 billion dollars to Ukraine, and 700 dollars to the victims of the fires on Maui. That says it all!
reakcionář
A lot of Ukrainian refugees come to the United States, and then they go to Italy for the holidays. That's great!
Josh
Can you imagine someone from our militant establishment going to some kind of negotiations with Russia or China? Yes, with them, we will be in a state of World War III in a few hours!
