'Fox News Sunday' on July 9, 2023

Interview

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Great to be with you, Shannon. Thank you.

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Joe Biden is playing right into the hands of communist China. Never again can we allow ourselves as a nation to be dependent upon them for anything. And to see Secretary Yellen there bowing down repeatedly in China, it's embarrassing and it's emblematic of this administration.

You know, just a couple of days before she got there, they choked off supply of key minerals that we need for semiconductors, for solar panels. These people are the people that are stealing our trade secrets. They're buying up our farmlands. They're killing our citizens with fentanyl.

This foreign policy is a national security disaster. You know, we ought to be less dependent, we need to be diversifying our supply chain. Instead, the president is making it worse. He's shutting off mining for critical minerals in the United States, while forcing people to buy expensive electric cars.

He's making us poorer. He's making China richer, and it's going to get worse next week when we sends John Kerry to China to continue this surrender.

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Well, they most certainly are. China is watching closely what we do on all fronts, but specifically in Ukraine, because as we know, China and Putin said that there are no limits to their friendship and they both view the president as weak and indecisive.

China, as you talk about militarily, they are gearing up significantly. They're looking at Taiwan. I think Taiwan needs the weapons and the technology to be able to porcupine themselves.

This is a time for the United States to be showing strength, not this slow surrender that I see from this administration.

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Well, first and foremost, this is what the president needs to do with NATO. He needs to hold their feet to the fire.

Five hundred days into the war, of all the money that's been contributed, the United States has doubled what all other NATO countries have done combined. Of the 30 NATO nations, only seven of them are actually meeting their commitment to a 2 percent of their gross national product and that number has dropped since Joe Biden has come to office.

I think it's very important for the president to point out all those countries are a lot closer geographically to Putin, therefore much more vulnerable to him. Putin is not going to stop until he is stopped. And the president needs to say that loud and clear at NATO this week.

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Well, I think it's important that NATO stay together and that we act in unity, and I think NATO has to be held accountable and do more. We cannot shoulder this burden alone, nor should we.

There's lots of support in Congress for Ukraine, and it's for technology, it's for weapons, it's for information, it's not for troops. The best thing we can do now is to step up.

And I see the president doing that with the cluster bombs. I support those. This should have happened long ago. Russia has been using those for a long time.

It just does seem to me, Shannon, that there's much delay in the activity of this administration in ultimately getting to Ukraine what they need, but it's taking too long. You know, the president has this misguided fear that any time we send anything to them, it's going to just add to escalation in ways that Putin will then attack more.

"The Economist" magazine this week reported in the last year, the Russians and Putin fired 10 million -- 10 million, I mean, just astonishing number, of shells into Ukraine and by so many of delays we've had in this administration, I think it's just prolonged the war and added to increased death.

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You know, every time I visit with President Zelenskyy, he brings up this issue. I think he may want to come out and should come out of this meeting seeing a pathway to joining NATO, what steps they need to take only after this conflict with Russia is over.

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I voted against that bill back, I think, it was in 2009. I support the use of these weapons. Russia has been using them all along. I think this fills a gap that the folks need in Ukraine in their battle. I wish they would have had them sooner.

But, you know, right now, Shannon, the Congress, the House and Senate are debating the National Defense Authorization Act and they may -- that discussion will probably be part of those debates as we come to votes in Congress again.

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Thank you.

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