Meet the Press - June 25, 2023

Interview

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Good morning, Chuck. It's great to be with you.

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It was a great game last night.

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You know, I think it's a minority of the Republicans who have been weak on this. I think the majority of us believe that we have to stand by Ukraine. You can't let a bully do what Putin's doing. If you don't stand up to the bully, the bully will come back. And it won't be just Ukraine, it could be the Baltics or other countries next. And I think what we saw this weekend was how fragile Putin's leadership is right now, how fragile the military is, the Russian military. And why is that? They have lost 200,000 troops in this year and a half. That is almost seven times more than what America lost in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've lost half their tanks. Their air force has been depleted significantly. The only real answer here is that Putin's got to stop this war and pull out of Ukraine. If he wants to save his country, save his leadership position, I think that's really the only answer, because this will not get better for Putin or Russia. And, by the way, I think we could even do more with the ATACMS and other long-range precision weapons. I believe President Biden's been slow on this. But the bottom line is we see the fragility of Putin, their military, and they are taking significant losses. And that's why.

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Yes, I do. I think our actions have helped Ukraine prevail to the extent that they are right now. Still, they're in the middle of a war, Russia controls about 10% of their country. But without our aid, without our support, I think Ukraine would have fallen by now. And I would just like to point out, we have spent roughly 5% of our military, of what we budget for our military, that's what's gone to Ukraine. And it's depleted roughly half of Russia's army.

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And we've been very effective.

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Yes. That's what we've done in the last year and a half. And I think this has weakened Russia for, well, maybe a decade to come, which is good for the Baltic countries. It's good for Poland. And it would be different if Putin was wanting to be a peaceful neighbor, but he's not. So we see the barbaric -- basically, what he's doing is, "might makes right," and that's not what we want with a major nuclear country. And so I think we have a moral obligation to stand up here and help Ukraine. I think too many Republicans have tried to stay under the radar on this. We do best when we stand for what's right, what's truthful. And I believe in Ronald Reagan's principles of, you know, of strength -- we get peace through strength. And you've got to stand up and help out the little guy that's being beat up by the big guy.

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I don't believe so, Chuck. We don't have a right to take top secret information to our home. I've dealt with top secrets since I was 22 years old, in the military for 30 years, and now in Congress. You don't show our attack plans on Iran to people who are not cleared or pick documents that talk about our nuclear technology or where our intelligence resources are located throughout the world. And that's what happened there. And when the government asks for them back, you give them back. And if you deny having them, but then you have them, those are crimes. And so I --

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You know, like, we have President Biden, who had classified, but he gave it back when they found it. We have Mike Pence, who had classified, but he gave it back. But I think people see, "Well, there are other people that had classified," but the situations are different. I personally thought Hillary Clinton was wrong for having thousands of emails on her private server that I can guarantee you that Russia and China could penetrate and read some of those emails that were top secret. I thought she should have been held more accountable. But I think a lot of our voters see, or perceive, these inconsistencies. But two wrongs don't make a right. You can't have hundreds of top secret information and be showing our attack plans on Iran to non-cleared people. I think, again, our party does best when we stand on the rule of law, the truth, the principles that made our party strong. And if we walk away from that, we'll be weakened in the short run, for sure.

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Thank you.

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