Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Armed Services Committee, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and the Biden administration’s attempt to strike a new nuclear agreement with Iran.
Click here to watch the full interview, or read highlights from the conversation below.
On the courage shown by Ukrainians:
“Vladimir Putin thought that he was going to be able to achieve a quick victory, collapse the Ukrainian’s will to fight, and collapse Zelenskyy’s will to fight. That’s not what’s happened. The Ukrainians have stepped up and demonstrated remarkable courage…There is more we can do to provide military assistance in the form of stingers, javelins, sniper rifles, body armor, and mines to make this as costly as possible for Vladimir Putin, to get him involved in a quagmire and ultimately turn this into a long term humiliation for him.”
On Biden continuing to rely on Russia in negotiations with Iran:
“I don’t think most Americans understand that right now, as Biden’s threatening to turn Putin into a total pariah, the Biden administration is relying on Russia to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program. And of course, Russia has not only been blocking the IAEA investigation into Iran’s undeclared nuclear activities, but it also wants to sell uranium and weapons to Iran. If this administration announces an Iran deal brokered by Putin, that won’t just be billions of dollars for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, it’ll be a massive win for Vladimir Putin in the Middle East. And I guarantee you, the Biden administration will justify it by saying that because of the energy crisis, bringing 1 to 2 million barrels of Iranian crude on the global market is a good idea and will help Americans at the pump. This is insane. I beg the Biden administration to drop this dangerous fantasy of trying to resuscitate the Iran deal. It would be a win for Putin and a loss for the United States of America.”
On the need to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion:
“If we don’t defend Taiwan, that’s the complete collapse of our position, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but really in our status as the leader of the free world. And the lessons from Ukraine are obvious. You need hard power in place on the ground prior to the crisis to deter dictators and authoritarians like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. The second point, as former Prime Minister of Japan Abe just said, we should end our policy of strategic ambiguity with Taiwan and let there be no ambiguity about the fact that we will come to Taiwan’s defense. And the third point is that as much as the Chinese might protest the move, we should be increasing our partnership, particularly our military partnership, with Taiwan. And really put some pressure on Taiwan to invest in asymmetric capabilities, missiles, mines, things that will make it very, very difficult for the CCP to invade Taiwan. But I fear that the weakness we’ve projected has just expedited Xi Jinping’s timeline for Taiwan, and he might feel like he should make a move in the next two years because he can get away with it. So those of us in public office need to do a better job of communicating why this is so important. It’s time for America to wake up.”
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