CNN’s Jake Tapper Incredulous After Tim Scott Blames Biden for ‘Dragging His Feet’ On Ukraine: Won’t ‘Congress Have Blood On Its Hands?’
CNN’s Jake Tapper confronted Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) for claiming that President Joe Biden was “dragging his feet” on Ukraine.
Scott appeared on State of the Union Sunday where the two sparred on a variety of topics, including Ukraine and Donald Trump’s claims about not defending NATO-member nations.
Scott claimed, “I’ll tell you this, without any question, from the beginning of the Ukraine war, what we’ve seen is actually Joe Biden dragging his feet. This is after we saw the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan. We’ve seen war in Ukraine. We have conflict in the Middle East. We have instability in the indo-pacific. What we need is strong American leadership.”
Tapper pushed back, “I don’t understand how you can criticize President Biden for ‘dragging his feet’ when it comes to helping Ukraine when Donald Trump is out there saying that we shouldn’t, the United States shouldn’t, be giving any money to Ukraine,” Tapper said, continuing:
And he set out alarm bells throughout NATO countries when he talked about Russia doing “whatever the hell it wants to do” to protect countries that don’t pay enough. Let’s talk about what Russia’s doing right now, because this a key city of Avdiivka fell to Russian forces yesterday in a major setback for Ukraine. President Zelensky blamed the loss on the artificial deficit of arms and ammunition because of western inaction. He pleaded for Congress to act.
You said, after Hamas attacked Israel, you said President Biden had “blood on his hands” because he hadn’t confronted Iran more aggressively, and Iran supports Hamas. If the us fails to support Ukraine right now in the fight against Russia, will Congress have blood on its hands?
Scott did not back down, answering, “Well, we’ve already supported Ukraine for over $100 billion, and when I said that Joe Biden dragged his feet getting into this conflict at the beginning, I meant that. Look at the fact that we followed Germany — we followed Germany — to help a NATO ally out — to help Ukraine, not a NATO ally — but they help Ukraine. That is a really important first step that set us back by months. What we’ve been doing since then is playing catch-up. That’s one of the reasons why Congress has appropriated over $100 billion. Even president Donald Trump has said a loan to Ukraine would actually provide more resources.”
After he dropped out of the race for president, Scott enthusiastically threw his support behind Trump over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC).
Watch the clip above via CNN.
