‘None of This Concerns You?’ Jake Tapper Presses Blinken For Tip-Toeing After Musk ‘Sabotaged’ Ukrainian Offensive Against Russia

CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Secretary of State Antony Blinken to explain what the U.S. government is going to do about Elon Musk after he refused to provide Starlink access to the Ukrainian military for their operations against Russia.

Blinken joined Tapper on Sunday for State of the Union, where he was asked about Musk’s recent admission that he blocked Starlink access in Crimea, disrupting Ukraine’s communications as they commencing an attack against the Russian navy in 2022. Ukrainian officials condemned Musk by arguing that his decision permitted more civilian casualties from Russia’s invasion, while Musk has argued that the attack would’ve been a major escalation for the war, and “We did not want to be a part of that.”

As Tapper recapped all of this for Blinken, he summarized it as “Musk effectively sabotaged a military operation by Ukraine, a U.S. ally, against Russia, an aggressor country, that invaded a U.S. ally.”

“Should there be repercussions for that?” Tapper asked.

Blinken punted with his answer:

Jake, I can’t speak to a specific episode. Here’s what I can tell you. Starlink has been a vital tool for the Ukrainians to be able to communicate with each other, and particularly for the military to communicate in their effort to defend all of Ukraine’s territory. It remains so and I would expect it to be critical to their efforts. What we would hope and expect is that that technology will remain fully available to the Ukrainians. It is vital to what they’re doing.

“I don’t know that you can’t speak to it. You won’t speak to it,” Tapper observed. “Musk said that he was reportedly afraid that Russia would rally with nuclear weapons. Musk says that’s based on his private discussions he had with senior Russian officials. Are you concerned that Musk is apparently conducting his own diplomatic outreach to the Russian government? Really? None of this concerns you?”

Again, Blinken declined to speak about “conversations that may or may not have happened,” choosing instead to praise Starlink’s usefulness to Ukraine.

“Starlink is an important part of their success, and as I said, we expect that it will continue to be so,” Blinken said.

“It sounds like Starlink is so important the U.S. government doesn’t want to risk offending a capricious billionaire who did some things that I think in another situation, the U.S. government might want to say something about,” Tapper said.

Watch above via CNN.