Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) today joined The Story with Martha MacCallum on Fox News to discuss Putin’s recent invasion of Ukraine and Biden’s weak response to this crisis.
Read highlights of the conversation below, or watch the full interview here.
On Biden’s weak response to Putin’s invasion:
“Well, the initial sanctions seem weak and tepid. And more to the point, the entire intellectual foundation of the Biden administration’s approach to this crisis, which was that the threat of sanctions after the fact would be sufficient to deter an invasion, has obviously failed. Sanctions alone will not be sufficient to deter Vladimir Putin. And what conclusion is he left to derive when this is just a slap on the wrist he faces after an invasion, other than, ‘well, I can expand my effort, and I’ll get a tepid response from the West’? So this White House has been caught flat-footed from the start, they have contributed to the crisis with their disastrous energy policy. And we’re running out of time and running out of options, and these sanctions are simply not going to get the job done.”
On the consequences of Biden’s disastrous energy policy:
“Americans shouldn’t have to sacrifice and suffer for President Biden’s foolish decisions. He made the decision to cancel the Keystone Pipeline in the first week of his administration. He made the decision to lift sanctions on Nord Stream II. So, reversing those two decisions would go a long way towards atoning for those bad mistakes, as well as stopping the war on domestic energy production here in America. So I fear Putin understands he has enormous leverage throughout this conflict. I believe in the months leading up to this crisis, he was withholding gas flows to Europe to further squeeze the Europeans and exhibit and use leverage in the energy domain. That’s going to continue throughout this crisis. And oh, by the way, Martha, that’s going to put further pressure on the administration to get an Iran deal at any price, because they want to bring Iranian crude onto the energy market in order to alleviate that pain that Americans are feeling for their bad foreign policy decisions.”
On Putin’s end game:
“What really worries me is that if you listen to Putin’s hour-long and unhinged speech from yesterday, he really only mentions the Donbas in passing. He threatens all of Ukraine, as well as all former Soviet satellite countries. I do think his designs extend beyond southeastern Ukraine. I think he is at least giving himself the option to make a move on Kyiv if he continues to face only limited punishment for what he’s doing. I think this is going to get a lot worse. I think we’re going to see the biggest laboratory in the world for hybrid warfare, and all our enemies are going to be going to school on this, particularly China.”
