04.10.22

ICYMI: McConnell on Fox News Sunday

LOUISVILLE, KYU.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined Dana Perino this morning on Fox News’ ‘Fox News Sunday’. Click here to watch the full interview or see below for highlights:

On Helping Ukraine Win:

“We want the Ukrainians to win. To win. To defeat the Russians, for the Russians to withdraw from the country, and that will be our goal. I think the administration has gotten better, but they've had to be pushed every step of the way to get more aggressive sooner. They are stepping up their game, but principally because of bipartisan pressure from Congress on the administration to do more, quicker. So I think they are getting better, but they still don't understand the goal. The goal is for Ukraine to win.”

“Putin’s invasion has done a lot to unify NATO and get the attention of NATO. It’s also noteworthy that the secretary general of NATO has pointed out, we are going to beef up the troops along the eastern border of NATO, the frontline countries. This has been a good lesson of the importance of NATO, once again. I think some people have kind of lost sight of that over the years.”

On U.S. Energy Independence:

“The administration wants everybody else to produce more except us. They want us to be green, and so they are going after our allies in the Middle East, asking them to up production. We were energy independent as late as 2019, and we can be energy independent again. The administration needs to take the shackles off of domestic production. We can meet our own needs, and we can export and help the Europeans as they wean themselves away from Russian oil and gas, which I think clearly now they realize is the best and safest path forward.

On Title 42:

“It's an outrageous decision to eliminate Title 42. It will produce a gusher — far beyond the open border we already have — of additional people coming in. Totally inconsistent, by the way, with them asking us for $10 billion for vaccines and therapeutics. What we said in the Senate was — not just we, Republicans, but five or six Democrats as well — let us offer an amendment to guarantee that Title 42 stays in place and we would be happy to go ahead and pass the COVID relief package, which by the way is paid for by repurchasing some of the $2 trillion the Democrats dumped on the economy last year, which Larry Summers has pointed out, is the principal reason we are having 40 year high inflation.”

On the Biden Administration’s Failures:

“I think his policies have not worked, beginning with the precipitous and ill-advised withdrawal from Afghanistan, which became kind of a metaphor for the incompetence that's been on full display during this administration. None of the policies they've pursued have worked out well. The $2 trillion they dumped on the economy last year, against the advice of economists like Larry Summers, produced the wave of inflation everybody is seeing when they fill up their automobiles and when they go to the grocery store. Their policies have produced virtually open borders.

“The previous administration did a good job at the border. [The Biden Administration] reversed all those policies and we have been paying the price for that. We have a crime wave in the country and they’ve continued to promote policies that in my view are pretty much soft on crime.”

On the Future of the Country:

“This is the greatest country in the world. We have these rough spots, and we’ve had them for 200 years. We always found a way to correct when we are on the wrong path and move in a different direction, so there's no reason to be pessimistic about America's future. We are the most important country in the world, the freest country in the world, and let's remember that.”

 

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