It's a "false choice" to believe that an administration that doesn't take care of the southern border shouldn't be helping Ukraine; but if President Joe Biden hadn't projected weakness and had kept former President Donald Trump's energy policies in place, Ukraine would not be in the situation it is in now, Rep. Claudia Tenney told Newsmax on Saturday.
"I think there's a misinterpretation of what it means to be 'America first' and that's what President Trump stood for, and I know a lot of them and many of us are allies of his policies," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "Saturday Agenda." "He was strong. He rebuilt our economy. He created energy independence and gave us strength to leverage and negotiate that around the world, particularly with Russia."
And although the Biden administration refuses to give resources to protect the southern border, Tenney asked, "What do we do?
"Do we just let everybody die in Ukraine and not deal with this issue?" asked Tenney. "All Biden simply had to do was to employ and use the policies put in place that were working at the southern border."
But if Biden hadn't created a "war on energy," then "we wouldn't see the situation we have in Ukraine, where people like Vladimir Putin and diabolical dictators like Putin feel emboldened to go in and invade a country in modern-day Europe," said Tenney.
The United States thought World War II would end such invasions; but the United States is projecting weakness under Biden, "and I think there's sometimes a false choice that if we don't take care of our southern border, then we shouldn't be taking care of Ukraine," said Tenney.
But, she said, the United States must do both "because we are the beacon of freedom. We are also the law and order country."
Tenney said she has proposed a bill calling for spending the money earmarked for 87,000 new IRS agents to be spent instead on patrolling the border.
"When you project weakness, you have a problem, and it's costly and lives are going to be lost," said Tenney. "We as a country cannot do what we did during World War II. We got into it too late, and it cost a lot of lives."
Instead, she said, "We have to find a way to a middle ground. I think we take back the House. And we can take back the Senate. We can put in reasonable policies and push our Democratic friends to come to the middle, because the biggest fallacy going on right now is somehow the Republican Party is extreme. We're actually reasonable, commonsense. We have a commitment to America."
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who will be the next House speaker if the GOP regains control of Congress, has said that he wants more accountability for the money the United States has been sending for the war in Ukraine, and Tenney said there is "evidence that this money isn't going where it's supposed to be."
"We also have supply chain issues, so the resources that we're trying to get to Poland and allies and others to fight this war for us. It's, you know, not putting our U.S. troops on the ground, which I oppose; but we want to see the accountability before any more money goes in there."
McCarthy, she added, "has seen the concern there, and that's what I think the major focus of his comments are."
Meanwhile, Democrats are putting forth "any issue they can" in their attacks on Republicans, said Tenney.
"They're denying inflation," she said. "They're attacking Republicans on abortion. I come from a state like New York where there is late-term abortion, and I support the states' rights issues. So we have to, you know, there's just a lot of issues that they're trying to distract voters with instead of the real issues that plague Americans. But ignoring this Ukraine issue is not going to make it go away. It could hurt the United States in the long run, so I think a better strategy coming from us in the majority would certainly be better guidance for the Biden administration."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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