The top Republican in the Senate argued that Carlson’s outspoken stance against US support for Ukraine was one of the primary reasons why approving more than $60 billion in emergency spending for the former Soviet state took so long to achieve.
“I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who in my opinion ended up where he should have been all along, which was interviewing Vladimir Putin,” McConnell said during a press conference, referring to the former Fox News host’s February sit down with the Russian president.
“He had an enormous audience, which convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake,” the 82-year-old Kentucky Republican added.
Putin rambled on about Russia’s 1,000-year history with Ukraine and argued in support of his country’s territorial claim to it over the course of Carlson’s unfocused, two-hour-long interview with the Russian strongman.
Putin himself blasted Carlson, 54, for not asking “sharp questions,” telling Russian media that he “did not get full satisfaction from this interview.”
McConnell also laid blame on former President Donald Trump, Democrats and the border crisis for the amount of time it took to get most Republican lawmakers to acquiesce in continuing to fund the Ukrainian war effort.
“I think the former president had sort of mixed views on it,” he said of Trump’s position on Ukraine aid.
“We all felt that the border was a complete disaster, myself included,” McConnell continued, noting that the attempt earlier this year to attach border security provisions to Ukraine funding required senators to “deal with Democrats … and then a number of our members thought it wasn’t good enough.”
“And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all,” McConnell said. “That took months to work our way through it.”
The Senate is expected to approve legislation Tuesday that sends $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, following the weekend passage of the bill in the House of Representatives.
“We ended up doing the supplemental that was originally proposed,” McConnell said of the current state of affairs, noting that the bill doesn’t solve “all problems” but adequately addresses “the growing threats at the moment.”