GOP Texans: Aiding Ukraine in U.S. interest
While the two leading GOP presidential candidates talk about cutting back aid for Ukraine, key Republican members of the Texas congressional delegation are forcefully making the case that American support must continue to keep Russia and China at bay.
Both former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron Desantis have come out saying that backing Ukraine isn’t in the interests of the U.S.
Without directly criticizing the two front-runners seeking the presidential nomination, key members of Congress in Texas are pushing back, asserting that Ukraine’s future is very much critical to U.S. interests. Among them is U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Houston Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, who said people clamoring for cutting U.S. funding to Ukraine as some commitment to ‘America first’ are pitching an idea that made sense in the 1700s when it would take 6 to 8 months for troops to get from Europe to the U.S.
“It’s not ‘America first’ to let China and Russia just conquer the world until they come to our shores,” the Houston Republican said in an interview he posted on social media on Sunday.
Without U.S. aid to Ukraine, an emboldened Russian army would be on the borders of Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary, all NATO nations.
“Why wouldn’t you just write a check? Give it to the Ukrainians to tell them to fight it just to prevent that scenario,” Crenshaw said.
He’s far from alone. U.S. Rep.
Michael Mccaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was on Fox News Sunday saying U.S. support of Ukraine is vital not just as a response to Russian aggression, but also in sending a clear message to China when it comes to Taiwan and the rest of the South Pacific.
“I think what’s happening in Ukraine will provide a deterrent with what happens in Taiwan,” said Mccaul, an Austin Republican whose district stretches from Austin to Katy.
Mccaul’s comments came as Trump was in Waco on Saturday for a rally where several speakers blasted the U.S. spending in Ukraine. Among them was U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rgeorgia, who said the U.S. should be working on its own border with Mexico and “not funding a war in Ukraine defending their border.”
Trump didn’t repeat his earlier declaration to Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the war in Ukraine is not in the best interest of the U.S., but said if he were president again he’d be negotiating a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict.
“I’m going to get a settlement very quickly,” Trump said in Waco as he talked about his relationship with Putin.
Desantis had a similar tone in his interview with Fox’s Carlson, saying that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not” a vital U.S. interest.
“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted,” Desantis said.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-texas, on CNN said he was surprised by Desantis’s response.
“I mean, Gov. Desantis is a veteran. He’s a smart guy. I think he’s a been a very good governor and I don’t understand him saying that Ukraine isn’t important to the United States,” Cornyn said.
Crenshaw said the U.S. is getting “a pretty damn good deal” out of Ukraine. For aid that amounts to less than 10 percent of U.S. defense spending, he said, the Ukrainians are decimating the Russian military and keeping them off NATO borders.
“Which situation is more dangerous?” Crenshaw said of U.S. options. “The one where Ukrainians are fighting and dying and keeping them away from NATO’S borders, or the one in which we have a completely intact Russian military, emboldened knowing NATO won’t do anything to stop them, right on four more NATO countries’ borders.”