Sen. Mike Rounds (RSD) said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) controversial comments on Sunday describing Russia’s war with Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” could be due to “primary politics,” the governor said. 2024 presidential race.
“Look, I don’t think this is a territorial dispute, while he’s taking territory, and it’s technically accurate to say territory is being taken. It’s bigger than that for us,” Rounds said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I think primary politics probably had something to do with it,” the senator said of the Florida governor’s comments.
DeSantis, who has not formally announced a presidential run, is seen as the best challenger to former President Trump, recently calling Russia’s year-long war with neighboring Russia a “territorial dispute” and criticizing the Biden administration for its continued support. Kiev
Rounds said Sunday that the Biden administration’s main focus should be China, but noted that he felt “what’s happening in Ukraine cannot be separated from the core issues surrounding America’s relationship with China.”
A US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 “sends a message” to Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Republican senator said, adding that the US is withdrawing from the international scene, “maybe they test the waters. Otherwise we won’t be using our capabilities internationally in the future.”
“So, taking the issue of Afghanistan — and then Putin’s testing the waters now, next to them a sovereign state in 1995, they agreed. Sovereignty over that particular piece of land, well, Xi Jinping looked at it and said, ‘I’m going to look at this very carefully.’ says,” Rounds said.
Because Xi Jinping loves Taiwan. He had already promised that, one way or another, he was going to get it back. He wants to see how we respond, whether or not we can keep our allies together, whether or not NATO stays together or strengthens NATO or not. So, it is a bigger picture than a territory,” the senator stressed.
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