DeSantis says defending Ukraine from Russia is not a key US interest
Conrad Hoyt
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) believes protecting Ukraine in its territorial defense from Russia is not a key U.S. interest, separating himself from top Republicans such as former Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and adopting a vocal viewpoint more in line with former President and possible 2024 opponent Donald Trump.
DeSantis’s views on the Eastern European conflict were read on Tucker Carlson’s show after the Fox News host sent out a questionnaire last week to prospective Republican 2024 presidential candidates. The sending of an answer, as much as the position of that answer itself, is noteworthy as it is seen as a definitive declaration that DeSantis will be running for the White House next year.
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“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis wrote in response to Carlson’s question of whether opposing Russia in Ukraine is a vital strategic interest for America.
“The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,” DeSantis added. The Florida governor said the Biden administration’s strategies have driven Russia to closer ties with China, which he sees as a greater threat than that posed in Moscow.
The question of offering aid to Ukraine, especially as President Joe Biden put it in a surprise visit to Kyiv on the anniversary of the war, for “as long as it takes,” is sure to be a major point of contention in the 2024 primaries and general election. Contrary to DeSantis and other Republicans scolding Biden for doing too much in Ukraine, many have chastised Biden for not doing enough.
Pence has condemned “apologists” for Russian President Vladimir Putin within the Republican Party, an indirect dig at Trump, adding that there can be no room in the Republican Party for them, only “room for champions of freedom.” In his response to Carlson, the former vice president echoed the same sentiment and even the same words at times.
At the Munich Security Conference last month, McConnell told national security leaders that Republicans are committed to the Ukrainian war effort, adding that “reports about the death of Republican support for strong American leadership in the world have been greatly exaggerated.”
Some Republican leaders, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), have slammed Biden’s refusal to supply Ukraine with F-16s. While these leaders believe in continuing to send aid to the war-torn Eastern European country, they have said they want there to be accountability regarding the amount of money and equipment sent overseas.
On the other side of the issue, along with DeSantis and Trump, lies Carlson himself, who has been an outspoken critic of Biden’s approach to Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying in December of Zelensky, he “arrived at the White House dressed like the manager of a strip club and started to demand money.” Carlson has gone so far as to call Zelensky a corrupt “antihero.”
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Trump’s main stance on the war in Ukraine is that it never would have happened if he were president, pointing his sights on Biden and drawing a clear line in the sand on where the two likely favorites yet again for the presidential nod stand on the conflict.
While DeSantis has largely swatted away Trump’s digs at him in the past few months without going on the offensive himself, taking a similar approach to navigating Russia and Ukraine as the former president shows where the two top Republicans agree in their foreign policy objectives.