Senator Ron Johnson breaks down why he voted ‘no’ on the Senate’s border and foreign spending bill.

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    A bipartisan group of Centrist house lawmakers unveiled an emergency funding bill on Friday that includes aid for Ukraine Israel and Taiwan in addition to border security after Republicans of course threw cold water on the foreign a package passed by the Senate earlier last week now our next guest voted no on

    That package and here he is making the case for his vote on the senate floor as sympathetic as I am for the Ukrainian people I don’t see how setting another $60 billion helps their plight because I see no strategy whatsoever on the part of the bid Administration to actually try and end the

    War and joining us now to discuss funding for Israel Ukraine and the border and more is Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin welcome to Rising Senator thank you for joining us morning happy to be here we’re very glad to have you let’s get your perspective on what do you think the

    US’s role and responsibility at is at this point to a country such as Ukraine um invaded by Russia and defending itself but of course many American taxpayers wondering if continued funding is actually going to help bring a a resolve to the war on Ukraine side well first of all I think most

    Americans are highly sympathetic with the pl of the Ukrainian people people uh they were invaded uh I think most people recognize Vladimir Putin is a evil war criminal uh so I think that’s basically the position of most Americans I think what our role right now needs to be is

    To recognize reality I don’t like current reality I I didn’t like it back in 20145 when when uh Vladimir Putin first invaded Crimea legally inex it then invaded eastern Ukraine I don’t like that reality but uh the fact of the matter is uh Vladimir Putin will not lose this War

    Uh Russia has four times population they’re cranking out about 4 and a half million of the 155 millimeter shells that they’re firing about 10,000 a day the West aren even think can manufacture a million a year uh we are now in a two-year long bloody stalemate uh the goal of US policy

    Should be to end this war and and any support we provide right now should be directed toward trying to convince Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table again it’s not going to be easy I was the only member of Congress who went to zelinsky’s inauguration I went back a few months

    Later with Senator Murphy one thing that president zinsky at that time told us is he wanted to do a peace deal with Putin back then uh this is before obviously Putin had invaded uh the last time but he was in firm control of Crimea eastern Ukraine and sininsky knew that he could

    Not dislodge Russia from Ukraine he knew it wouldn’t be popular but he realized that was the only rational thing to do um now we’re we’ve gotten the invasion hundreds of thousand people have died know hundreds hundreds of thousands more have been wounded uh if you’re concerned about the plight of the Ukrainian people

    I think we need to understand that what’s happening right now is that their country is being destroyed every day that goes by again this thing only ends with the negotiated settlement every day that goes by that settlement gets worse and worse as more ukrainians die more Russian conscripts die take no joy in

    That these are you know men that are yanked out of their Villages uh in in Russia put on the front as Cannon fod and more of Ukraine gets destroyed so our goal should be to end this thing I’m not going to like the result but uh every day that passes the results going

    To get worse and worse and worse do you think the Biden Administration is interested at all in facilitating peace talks between Russia and zalinski doesn’t sound that way again I would be very interested in what happened in in is fow when it sounded like pretty early in the conflict Russia

    Sat down with zinsky and they were com Coming to Terms uh Boris Johnson came into the mix and something happened there it doesn’t sound like President Biden has talked to Putin in in a couple years um I I I thought the Tucker Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin was extremely interesting uh we do

    Need to take a look at the reality situation he’s almost mocking Us in terms of sanctions they haven’t worked they haven’t destroyed Russia’s build to carry on this war they continue to sell oil they’re industrial base if anything is growing uh the fact that they are now

    Trading oil in things other than US Dollars just going to weaken our position is the world’s Reserve currency which is the greatest danger we Face $35 trillion in debt so again we have to look at the reality situation we have to stop relying on on retor and demagogy

    And and looking at the World As We wish it were and start looking at it as it is and dealing with the reality situ situation we’re not very good at that in in Washington DC let’s turn to the Border um you know many on the other side of the aisle will said well

    Republicans said they they were not willing to go along with um with funding for Ukraine and other matters until we did something about the border and then we presented a bill that ju did just that that had Republican input as well your colleague Senator James Lanford

    Helped put it together and then it got rejected um anyway can you can you respond to to that criticism of people saying Democrats saying Republicans were wanted this and we gave it to them and then said no we didn’t want an immigration bill we wanted something to force Biden to use

    The authority he has uh to actually secure the border to the extent he needed some of that Authority strengthened we were happy to do that that bill was an immigration bill it was worse than doing nothing it codified an awful lot of President Biden’s open border policies by and large would have

    Normalized thousands of people entering this country a year illegally without valid Asylum claims so I mean it was it was an awful awful bill I I mean people like me complaining about it didn’t kill that bill that bill killed itself it gave them crash cover I it was the

    Stupidest thing to negotiate that was leader McConnell that masterminded that debacle but what we all we ever asked for in conference was uh the fact that we knew that President Biden is Lawless he doesn’t agree he doesn’t follow Supreme Court rulings uh there’s no way

    We could rely on him on carrying out any agreement we reached so we looking for a forcing mechanism I suggest you’re just tying Ukraine funding to actual border metrics uh like we do in business all the time performance metrics uh that even though we talked about that repeatedly in conference there’s a great

    Deal of support with Republican Senators McConnell without telling anybody just convey to James lford that’s not even on the table uh so again we we we didn’t have leverage I mean it was it was the stupidest negotiation done in secret uh this is something the public demands if

    They want to secure border that bill would not have secur the Border again it would have codified Biden’s open border policy that is facilitating right now the multibillion Dollar business model some of the most evil people on the planet the the drug the human the sex traffickers uh we actually need to

    Secure the border and that’s that’s what we’re looking for now can the can Republican voters um you know trust in their leadership to address a a lot of these problems because there seems like you yourself pointing out that Senate uh the Senator Mitch McConnell having this very agenda of uh prioritizing funding

    For Ukraine and and being initially in support of this bill on the border that you’re describing as very hostile to conservative goals is there a mismatch between the leadership of the Republican party including in Congress and what its actual supporters and voters um want in terms of a realistic foreign policy um

    Sanity at the border other issues I think there’s definitely a mismatch between leader McConnell and people that support Republicans you know leader McConnell has been leader I think since 2007 when our debt was below1 trillion doll now it’s approaching 35 in all that time period there’s been one constant at the negotiating table

    Whether we’re negotiating death ceiling increases appropriation bills or budgets that’s been MIT McConnell so I would not consider that type of leadership but conservative leadership would even consider it successful center right leadership 10 trillion to $35 trillion and now this debacle of negotiation on Border is it’s just you know that that’s

    For me the final straw which is one of the reasons I’m speaking out so strongly obviously I I helped lead the effort Rick Scott to agreed to run to challenge a mccon if the game this Congress unfortunately we only got 10 votes uh but there’ll be another challenge next

    Time we have a vote for Republican leadership in the Senate U I personally think uh you know speaker Johnson has got the right goals in mind uh we’ll see he’s he’s got a very difficult task with him with such a narrow majority in the house do do do you think before we let

    You go do you think in a you know future challenge there would be more votes in the Senate to replace McConnell with somebody else me I hope so I hope we were able to replace him or he just decides Ste down himself uh I will certainly be reminding

    My colleagues of this debacle over the Border I mean we we had an opportunity here to use the the president’s desire for you come funding for Ukraine to force him to secure the border and we completely and utterly blew it I mean just look at it at the majority leader

    Schumer’s comments he said that the Democrats are playing chess while the Republicans are playing checkers and now you know few few weeks afterward they’re in so much better position on the border let’s face it the Democrats want an open border they caused this problem and leader McConnell gave them cover uh it’s

    It’s hard to think you know of a of a worse negotiation than what leader McConnell masterminded there Senator Johnson thank you so much for joining us we appreciate it have a good Day

    30 Comments

    1. If you stop funding Ukraine then you have no power to enforce peace talks…the Ukrainians dont want to live under Russian control…so they'll just carry on fighting with European support.

    2. For any negotiations to take place Zelensky has to reverse the decree making them illegal until all pre 12014 territory has been taken back from Russia.That is pure fantasy.

    3. McConnell’s success with the Supreme Court when it comes to right wing interests is not even a factor. People like Senator Johnson are ready to throw him away like a used q-tip smh 🤦🏽‍♀️

    4. I agree with this guy 100% well inflation is killing us Americans how come our government donating money to other countries, and they don’t have enough money to secure the border

    5. Its pretty much an open secret in the UK that Biden sent Boris Johnson, our muppet PM at the time, to convince Ukraine to keep fighting rather than sign the treaty

    6. Unfortunately this individual still hasn't a clue
      American Imperium was planning on building navy bases on Crimea and turning the Black Sea into a Nato Sea.
      Militarization of Ukraine
      Short Range nuclear weapons in Ukraine
      Darth Putin is protecting the Russian Federation from a first strike
      Now look at the consequences
      Europe is at the mercy of the American Imperium
      Dependence on American Natural Gas

    7. The gentleman speaking is right. Ukraine cannot win this war and as a veteran I definitely wouldn't want to have to put my boots on the ground defending this country. They're not an a friend.

    8. Perhaps you need to watch Tucker Carlson’s piece and actually listen. While I want you to stop funding this war your rhetoric about Russia is inaccurate. My nephew will be conscripted and nobody has grabbed him off the streets. I cannot say the same for families on the Ukrainian side. Zelensky is getting rich and refuses to negotiate.

    9. Democrats are trying to blame the gop for ukranians losing that big city today to the russian army. The democrats knew from the first day this war started that ukraine was going to lose. They can never be honesr about anything.

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