U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined Larry Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss his trip to Ukraine last week, Ukraine-Russia tensions, and Democrats’ failed Build Back Broke plan. Excerpts and the full video are below.
On Joe Biden’s Leadership:
“What we should have done is be tougher up front. With regard to Nord Stream 2, that was an act of appeasement. When he let that pipeline be finished off on behalf of [former Chancellor] Angela Merkel in Germany and, of course, Vladimir Putin. He handed Vladimir Putin a weapon in this entire confrontation. Had he been tougher up front and recognized Vladimir Putin’s ability to use energy as a force, as a lever, and really as a weapon not just with Ukraine but with all of Europe, we may not be here today.
“When you’ve seen the weak moves by our president up to this point, it’s hard to take [Joe Biden] seriously. I worry the mixed signals are creating more chaos than a deterrent.”
On Joe Biden’s Minor Incursion Comment:
“Last week, six of my colleagues and I – a bipartisan congressional delegation – went to Ukraine to exercise and demonstrate our solidarity as a country and our solidarity as a Senate. Republicans and Democrats standing with our president and our State Department saying ‘we stand with Ukraine and we will stand against Russian aggression.’ The next morning we have a nice meeting with [President Biden]. We spend an hour talking about all these things and later that day he tells them ‘well if it’s a minor incursion maybe we have to talk about it.’ That’s like inviting a jewelry thief to the Tiffany’s Christmas party and telling them not to touch the merchandise. It’s just absurd. The weakness that is presented by his actions doesn’t match the tough talk.”
On the Implications of Ukrainian Sovereignty:
“The stability of Europe is what’s at stake. It’s not simply Ukraine – another former Soviet state again becoming a Soviet state. The ramifications are a stable or unstable Europe…
“We need to have a serious discussion about stabilizing Europe, because remember it doesn’t just end in Europe. You already talked about Afghanistan and the signal that sent to Vladimir Putin. What we do here is going to send a signal to China and Taiwan. It’s going to send signals to Iran.”
On President Zelensky:
“I think [Ukrainian] President Zelensky has done a good job of rooting out little by little some of the corruption in the country. You might recall, he ran on an anti-corruption platform. He was hugely successful as an outsider, much like a president we know. But I think you also find when you get into office it’s not as easy as you might have thought, but I think he’s making progress little by little. We ought to be standing up for him and for that sovereignty as long as he’s still the duly elected president of Ukraine.”
On Reports Seoul Paid Iran’s Delinquent UN Dues to Restore Their Vote:
“There’s $18 million in an account that was frozen in South Korea. The U.S. thawed it out and told our friends in South Korea, ‘go ahead and give it to [Iran].’ If you and I were to write a spy novel, we couldn’t come up with a scenario like this one.”
On Build Back Broke:
“There’s nothing in the Build Back Broke plan that’s all that great… I think the best way to move forward with some bipartisan suggestions is to wipe the slate clean, get a new white sheet of paper, sit down with people like Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema and others who want to be serious about bipartisan solutions. Then move forward. As you might have noticed, we have this little inflation problem, we have a southern border problem, we actually have an energy security challenge that was fixed a few years ago and now it’s back. I think there are bipartisan solutions, but I think it’s time to just knock out the nonsense. We’re not going to blow up the United States Senate. We’ve already run up more debt than is helpful. Let’s sit down and have adult conversations. I think there are some things we can do together.”
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