(DCWatchdog.com) – After reading the following report, please share your opinion. Do you agree with Sen. Marco Rubio or Gov. Ron DeSantis? Share your thoughts and views by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
Republican US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida blasted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for stating that the Russian invasion of Ukraine didn’t affect America’s “vital national interests.”
Rubio suggested that DeSantis, deemed a likely 2024 GOP nomination candidate, lacked foreign policy expertise.
Earlier this week, in response to a Fox News host Tucker Carlson questionnaire, Florida’s governor said Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war against Ukraine was a “territorial dispute.”
US Senator Marco Rubio rejected what seemed to be a “neo-isolationist” position expressed by DeSantis, stating the governor seemed out of line or uninformed.
“I don’t know what he’s trying to do or what the goal is,” Rubio told “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” as cited by Newsmax.
“Obviously, he doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor, so I’m not sure, I can’t speak to, I mean, I can’t compare that to something else he did or has said over the last few years because he doesn’t deal with it every day,” the senator argued.
“But I will say to you that in terms of my view of the overall issue, I think there’s nuance because foreign policy is about nuance,” he added.
Rubio elaborated that America not only “has an interest” in defending Ukraine’s sovereignty, but it is also its “number one interest in the world” due to a growing alliance of Putin’s Russia with Communist China.
“I think our geopolitical competition with China is by far the single biggest foreign policy priority that we need to have, and it’s a comprehensive one. But there are elements of that that are linked to what’s happening with Ukraine and Russia,” the Republican US senator insisted.
Rubio, in particular, dismissed DeSantis’s description of Putin’s war in Ukraine as a mere “territorial dispute.”
“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. This is an invasion,” he emphasized.
“The Russians basically decided that we want a government in Ukraine that we have control over, and their goal was we’re going to go in, we’re going to topple their government, or they’re going to abandon the country, and then we’ll install a puppet through some fake election, and then they’ll be in our orbit of influence,” Rubio elaborated.
He stressed that Moscow wanted to prevent Ukraine from becoming allied with the US and other Western nations.
“This is basically the Russians want Ukraine to be under their thumb… So it’s really more of a desire to dominate their neighbor, have them as part of their sphere of influence, not so much of it is about the land,” Rubio noted.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questioned Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' position on Ukraine as not being one of "vital national interests," suggesting the potential 2024 GOP primary candidate lacks foreign policy chops. https://t.co/2bZME237sg
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) March 14, 2023
