DeSantis Tells Tucker What He Wants to Hear about Ukraine

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In addition to being a general apologist for Russian President Vlad Putin, Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is also relatively open about his position of support for Putin's invasion of Ukraine.  Last week in what some are seeing as an attempt to bring GOP presidential candidates into the pro-Russia camp in regard to that invasion, Carlson sent around a questionnaire to solicit the views of GOP candidates on a variety of issues.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is not yet an official presidential candidate, received the survey and commented.  DeSantis said, in part, "While the US has many vital national interests . . . becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them."

The DeSantis reply to the questionnaire, in which he deftly re-characterized a murderous invasion of one sovereign nation by another as a "territorial dispute," seems to align him not only with Tucker Carlson's view, but also with that of certain Republican politicians like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene.   Congresswoman Greene raised lots of eyebrows last week with her characterization of Putin's invasion of Ukraine as being "This war against Russia in Ukraine."  (The former CrossFit gym operator really had to stretch to come up with that one!)

But Carlson's attempt to shape GOP foreign policy to fit his own view of the world and align it with Russian military objectives - and DeSantis's attempt to give the Fox commentator what he wanted to hear, may have backfired, at least with some prominent Republicans in the US Senate - the place where a lot of US foreign policy is ultimately given shape and purpose.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former Air Force JAG officer and an outspoken proponent of  the US military, quickly hit back at the DeSantis assertion that support for Ukraine was not a "vital" US interest by noting that attitude was tantamount to. saying that war crimes don't matter.   Senator Graham added that Putin's aggression will ultimately go beyond Ukraine, and he warned that "if you don't get that, you'r not listening to what he is saying."

But Graham wasn't the only Republican senator who chose to pile on to the DeSantis view of what is happening in Ukraine.   Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, noted that DeSantis has served in the US military and said that he regarded the Florida governor as a "smart guy," but said that he could not understand why DeSantis would say that Ukraine is not important to the United States.

The Republican whip in the Senate, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, also expressed disagreement with DeSantis's negative position on US support of Ukraine in its war for survival against Russia.

But Republican criticism of the DeSantis's view on US involvement in Ukraine was not limited to out-of-state sharpshooters.   Marco Rubio, one of Florida's two Republican senators, was also quick to point out that the situation in Ukraine was not a "territorial dispute" as his governor had described it.  Senator Rubio, who serves on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and is the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the following in response to the way in which DeSantis had described the on-going war:

"It's not a territorial dispute in the sense that any more than it would be a territorial dispute if the United States decided that it wanted to invade Canada or take over the Bahamas.  Just because someone claims something doesn't mean it belongs to them. . . There is a national security interest in Ukraine.  It's not the number one security interest the United States has, but it's an important one."

Common sense from Marco Rubio - who knew?  It's comforting to know that if Ron DeSantis ever wants to really know what is going on in the world around him, there are people close by whom he should be able to trust and who will give hime more honest information than he will get from Fox!