Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is all but certain to officially declare his 2024 White House ambitions any day now, has issued a statement on the war in Ukraine and entered the fray on the most hot-button foreign policy issue of the day. But it’s a weaselly statement. DeSantis sounds as if he is aligned with Trump on the war, but the language is also designed to make him look more opposed to President Joe Biden’s policy than he is. DeSantis wants to look like a MAGA candidate, but he’s doing it in the squirmiest way possible.
DeSantis issued the statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson in response to a questionnaire. That in and of itself is a clue as to how he likely wanted his statement to be received. Given that Carlson is a staunch nationalist and critic of aid to Ukraine, it only makes sense that DeSantis would offer a lengthy statement that Carlson would be congenial to.
It is still striking to see a more buttoned-up, establishment-friendly politician like DeSantis so blatantly downplay Russia’s misbehavior.
The statement ticks all the boxes on right-wing nationalist rhetoric: “While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” it reads.
There are a couple things to note here. First, in accordance with America First principles, DeSantis focuses on the U.S.’s border security and energy security, and highlights only China as a foreign adversary worthy of challenge. Second, he signals extraordinary friendliness to Moscow when he refers to the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.” The language implies that Russia and Ukraine might have equally legitimate claims to land in the war, and obscures the reality that Russia invaded…
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