(DailyVantage.com) – On Monday, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson asked several GOP presidential hopefuls to comment on their positions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Former President, Donald Trump, to no one’s surprise, came out forcefully against further American involvement in Ukraine. “The death and destruction MUST END NOW!”, the 45th President wrote in his statement to Tucker. Trump also asserted the U.S. has already footed too much of the bill: “The United States has spent much more than Europe, and that is not fair…”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has flirted with a 2024 bid but has not officially declared his candidacy yet, sounded awfully Trumpian in his answer to Tucker. The war in Ukraine, DeSantis said, is a “territorial dispute” that Americans should be uninvolved with.
The phrase, “territorial dispute”, seems to have triggered many on the right. Trump’s former Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, who declared her candidacy last month, lambasted DeSantis for his remarks, saying that “America is far better off with a Ukrainian victory than a Russian victory…”
Former Vice President Mike Pence also took issue with the Florida Governor’s remarks. In an interview with a New Hampshire radio station, Pence remarked that “the war going on in Ukraine right now is not a territorial dispute. It is the result of an unprovoked war of aggression by Russia.”
Now, Senate Republicans, who have no intentions of running in 2024, are weighing in on DeSantis’s controversial remarks. Senator John Thune (R-SD), told the press that “the majority opinion among Senate Republicans is that the U.S. has a vital national security interest there in stopping Russian aggression…”
Senator Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), echoed Thune’s comments saying, “I don’t agree with DeSantis…this is much bigger than a ‘territorial dispute’”
DeSantis now, in the wake of all of this negative blowback from his fellow Republicans, must choose whether to double down on his remarks, or, take a more moderate position on the conflict.
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