Russia's President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threat of a nuclear response to countries that interfere in his invasion of Ukraine proves he’s “being painted into a corner,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Sunday.
In an interview Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” McCarthy called Putin “reckless, evil and dangerous.”
“There's two reasons why he could be doing this,” McCarthy said of the threat of Russia’s using nuclear weapons. “One, because this war [in Ukraine] is not going well, and he's being painted into a corner, and he wants to be a stronger hand to try to negotiate a way out.”
“The second one is he's unstable, that he literally tried to have a nuclear weapon option going forward,” he continued. “At this moment in time, no country in the world should stand with Putin. Everyone should unite around the basis of what he just claimed to take in just the last hours.”
According to McCarthy, President Joe Biden should have supplied weapons to Ukraine in the months before the invasion.
“I had this conversation with President Biden in advance telling him I do not believe that Putin is afraid of sanctions,” McCarthy said. “He's lived with them for years, he knows how to get around them. What he really needs is a deterrent.”
At this moment, McCarthy said, even if America wants to supply Ukraine with, it's harder.
“We should have taken those actions sooner, and we should learn from this moment in time that we should speed up the sales of weapons to Taiwan for what the future looks like with China [which is] looking at what's happening today as well.”
McCarthy also blasted the Biden administration decision to go back into talks with Iran about their nuclear weapons capability.
“It is wrong that we're even back into the negotiations,” McCarthy declared. “The real action should be we should impose greater sanctions on Iran so they would never have a nuclear weapon and they would play in the world and stop funding terrorists around the world.”
McCarthy calls reentry into talks with Iran “is a wrong approach once again that the Biden administration is taking.”
“But the one concern I have especially coming back from Israel and the Middle East, this is a fear of all the countries in the Middle East,” he said. “Why aren't we building on the Abraham Accords, making the Middle East safer instead of moving back in with Iran. Them having a nuclear weapon makes the world so unsafe and if you think Putin is reckless and evil, think about a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran. Not only do they fund terrorism, they propose it and they train around the world to make us less safe.”
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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