Trump says Ukraine is ‘demolished’ and dismisses its defense against Russia’s invasion

What’s your feeling about allowing or permitting Ukraine to use American made or any long range missiles on participant targets inside Russia? Well, I think it depends on the targets, but I think, you know, I was actually in *** meeting with President Zelinski yesterday and he wants to be able to do that on military targets. And I think that’s uh uh important and I would support that. The one thing that came out of that meeting though, by the way, John, which was, you know, disturbing every time I’ve been in *** meeting with President Zelinski is, I’m ***, I asked him, are you getting the weapons that you need the weapons you need now? And, uh, even yesterday, he said no, and this is one of the things that I’ve been really critical of the Biden Harris administration on, they’re not in it to win it, this pattern of delaying weapons no matter what. Think about his very long time, ours patriots attack on F sixteen’s tanks. Uh, then we in the Congress pressure them. Um, they finally do it but this is still happening and, you know, the president of Ukraine told me that yesterday and imagine how much further we could be in that battle against the Russians if uh the Ukraine’s got the weapons they needed. So this is another, this is *** big flaw with Biden Harris in terms of Ukraine. One of the things that Lky consistently says is ultimately, you always say yes, ultimately, you always give us permission. So why don’t you just do it much sooner? Look, you, you criticized the Biden administration. He’s still, well, I don’t know if he’ll press it with the president, but he mentioned the most senior members of the Trump campaign seem to feel very differently than you. Donald Trump junior and RFK junior who now I guess holds *** senior position, at least in that world. They wrote an op ed in the Hill last week saying that the U should not give permission for Ukraine to use missiles deep inside Russia. They said, and for what to weaken Russia to control Ukraine’s minerals. No vital American interest is at stake to risk nuclear conflict for the sake of the neoconservative fantasy of global full spectrum dominance is madness. You agree. Well, look, I what II I was *** strong supporter of the national security package that wasn’t just about Ukraine, it was about getting weapons to our allies in Israel in Taiwan and really importantly, rebuilding our own military industrial capacity, which is why I supported that. That is atrophied under the Biden administration. But look, I think right now, particularly when people are talking different victory plans, peace plans. The most important thing we can do is get the Ukrainians the weapons they need, but also put them in *** position of strength, which is what you need to be in, in terms of if you have to start having these negotiations, which may or may not, um may or may not start soon. Zelinsky is going to be meeting with members of the Senate later this week. He’s gonna be laying out what he calls the victory plan. But to me, the critical thing we need to do is make sure they have the weapons and are in *** position of strength. If this turns into some kind of negotiated settlement, I do want to move on to the UN General Assembly, but just to acknowledge that’s *** different position than taken at least by Donald Trump, Jr and RFK Junior who are part of the Trump campaign. I’m on the record of supporting that, shaping it, not just to be about Ukraine, but about our own defense, industrial base and helping Israel and Taiwan, which is why that got strong support in the Senate and House. What do you want to hear from President Biden before the General Assembly today? You wrote *** whole op ed on it, particularly. What do you want to hear in regards to what’s happening in Lebanon right now? Well, look, I think it’s the president’s probably his last major foreign policy address. And I think for the American people and our allies, they need to ask is America and our allies safer today than we were four years ago. I think the answer is unequivocally no. And there is nowhere in the world that demonstrates that more than what’s going on in the Middle East. So what I would like to hear and I’m not holding my breath for President Biden or Vice President Harris to say this is there has been *** collapse of deterrence as it relates to Iran. Iran is the agent of chaos, not only in the Middle East, but even in Ukraine. And yet this administration’s uh focus on Iran has been lacking *** hallmark of this administration has been actual appeasement of Iran. They inherited *** really good situation with regard to Iran deterrence from the Trump administration and *** whole host of areas. So I would like the president in front of the, the UN to denounce the Iranians for what they are, the agents of chaos. And I’d also like to do what I raised with the Secretary General of the UN yesterday is to say in the UN needs to stop this long term systemic anti-israel, even anti Semitic positions that the UN has had. So those are things that I’ve been calling for. I doubt uh the President’s gonna do it. Do you think that the Israeli attacks and Hezbollah targets will be effective ultimately, or will increase the tension in the region. Well, it’s really difficult because right now, uh Israel is trying to do what we should be doing. They’re trying to re-establish deterrence against Iran and its proxies. And that has not happened uh with regard to the Biden Harris administration. To the contrary, John, what they’ve been doing on almost every single issue, they never talk about Iran. Think about it. The Trump administration, I’ll give you one example at the end of the Trump administration, maximum pressure sanctions brought the Iranians to their knees in terms of their economy, but also really limited their ability to export oil. They had about $4 billion in foreign reserves. By the end of the Trump administration, President Biden and Harris come in, they essentially don’t enforce those sanctions. And now the Iranians have about 80 billion in foreign reserves. Guess what they’re doing with that. They’re funding and training and equipping the Houthis Hezbollah, Hamas and deterrence’s collapse. And we’re seeing that chaos in the Middle East uh all over. I actually um you know, mentioned this to the president. You need to reimpose those Trump sanctions. He said he was interested in doing that, told me to work with Jake Sullivan on it. They won’t do it. And that’s um by the way, that would be *** bipartisan move if they did that. United States senators Democrats and Republicans want to reimpose those sanctions that was very effective during the Trump administration. Senator Dan Sullivan, we appreciate your time. Thanks for coming in.