Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, and a potential Republican presidential candidate split with many in his party on Monday and told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that defending Ukraine is not a “vital” national interest for the U.S.
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 a questionnaire response.
He claimed that “peace should be the purpose” for the U.S. and voiced his opposition to sending “F-16s and long-range missiles” to aid Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s war.
The response aligns DeSantis with former President Donald Trump and against many congressional Republicans who have helped support Ukraine. It indicates the growing influence of isolationist views within a party that has long endorsed an active U.S. presence in international affairs. It is possible to be a matter in the party’s presidential primary. DeSantis is favored by many establishment Republicans who want to turn the page on the former president.
Trump, responding to the same questionnaire about whether opposing Russia in Ukraine is vital to U.S. interests, responded: “No, but it is for Europe. But not for the United States.”
Conducted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Republicans on the opposing side of the matter have claimed that supporting Ukraine against Putin’s territorial purposes is necessary to protect not just European interests, but American ones, as well.
At the Munich Security Conference last month, McConnell said let me start by saying: I am a conservative Republican from America, and I come in peace. Reports about the death of Republican support for strong American leadership in the world have been greatly exaggerated.
We are committed to helping Ukraine. Not because of vague moral arguments or abstractions like the so-called ‘rules-based international order.’ But rather, because America’s own core national interests are at stake. Because our security is interlinked and our economies are intertwined.”
McConnell added.
DeSantis’ answer to Carlson is his most described yet about the hot-button foreign policy matter. He appeared discouraged in a recent interview with The Times of London, according to the journalist who spoke with him, when he was pressed for more specifics about how he would deal with Ukraine.
Perhaps you should cover some other ground? I think I’ve said enough.”
DeSantis said.
DeSantis voted for several defense bills that provided for U.S. military and intelligence support for Ukraine. While in 2016, DeSantis voted for a resolution calling on then-President Barack Obama to “provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapon systems to enhance the ability of the people of Ukraine to defend their sovereign territory from the unprovoked and continuing aggression of the Russian Federation.”
Mike Pence, Former Vice President carried thinly veiled attempts at DeSantis in a speech praising U.S. engagement in Ukraine in Texas last month and in a follow-up interview.
In February during a donor conference, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie teased DeSantis for claiming that President Joe Biden has concentrated more on Ukraine’s border than the U.S. border with Mexico, according to Politico. Christie said that was one of the “false choices” some Republicans were pressing and asked how “they teach foreign policy in Tallahassee.”
