DeSantis Blames Biden’s ‘Weakness’ for War in Ukraine

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dinged President Joe Biden for his “weakness” on Monday morning, arguing that it was one of the root causes of the war in Ukraine.

After being asked about Biden’s surprise visit to by Fox and Friends‘ Brian Kilmeade, DeSantis reminded Kilmeade of the Obama administration’s opposition to providing lethal aid to Ukraine before remarking that he didn’t “think any of this would have happened but for the weakness that the president showed during his first year in office, culminating, of course, in the disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan.”

DeSantis also accused Biden of a lack of focus on important domestic issues. “He’s very concerned about those borders halfway around the world. He’s not done anything to secure our own borders here at home,” said DeSantis.

“We’ve had millions and millions of people pour in, tens of thousands of Americans dead because of fentanyl, and then of course we just suffered a national humiliation of having China fly a spy balloon clear across continental United States,” he added. “So we have a lot of problems accumulating here in our own country that he is neglecting.”

After being prodded by co-host Lisa Boothe, the governor said Biden was approaching the war with “a blank check policy, with no clear strategic objective identified.”

While some in the GOP have been even more scathing in their critiques of American aid to Ukraine, DeSantis has long counted himself as a member of the hawkish wing of the party, with a deep-seated skepticism of Vladimir Putin‘s Russia.

In 2013, for example, DeSantis signed on to a letter to then-Secretary of State John Kerry expressing concerns over Russian efforts to economically coerce Ukraine. He also spoke highly of former president Donald Trump’s decision to send lethal aid to Ukraine, as well as his  naming pf John Bolton as his national security advisor.

DeSantis’s comments on Monday would seem to constitute an effort to balance his more traditionally conservative foreign policy instincts with the need to appeal to an increasingly conflict-averse Republican electorate.

Watch above, via Fox News.