The GOP presidential candidates revealed a divide among themselves based on whether they would continue to support aiding Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy indicated they would decrease or end U.S. support to Ukraine, while former Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Sen. Tim Scott said continuing to support Kyiv is in the best interest of the United States.
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"They're all connected," Christie said when asked if the U.S. was not paying enough attention to the developing relationships between Iran, China, and Russia. "The Chinese are paying for the Russian war in Ukraine. The Iranians are supplying more sophisticated weapons. And so are the North Koreans now as well, with the encouragement of the Chinese. The naivete on the stage from some of these folks is extraordinary."
Iran has provided Russia with Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles, but the drones' simplicity is what makes them useful to Moscow, which has primarily used the one-way "kamikaze" drones to target Ukrainian infrastructure. Additionally, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia to meet with Russian Vladimir Putin earlier this month, but there has not been a publicly announced arms deal, though the Biden administration said they had one in late 2022.
"The fact of the matter is, we need to say right now that the Chinese-Russian alliance is something we have to fight against, and we are not going to solve it by going over and cuddling up to Vladimir Putin," Christie added. "Look, Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was brilliant and the great leader. This is the person who is murdering people in his own country and now not having enough blood. He's now going to Ukraine to murder innocent civilians and [has] kidnapped 20,000 children."
Similarly, Scott affirmed that "degrading the Russian military" is in the U.S. national interest, and it would "actually keep our homeland safer," as did Haley, while Ramaswamy argued, "The reality is just because Putin is not an evil dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good," though he said the U.S. was pushing Moscow to Beijing.
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DeSantis said he wouldn't provide Ukraine with a "blank check" and indicated the U.S. should focus on the immigration surge at the southern border.
The divide among the seven candidates on the stage is representative of the divide within the party. A number of more hawkish conservatives on Capitol Hill have reiterated their support for aiding Ukraine, while more hard-line conservatives have taken up a more isolationist stance. The split is playing out within Congress's effort to avoid a government shutdown.