McCaul, Turner Insist Ukraine Support Has Not Wavered in Congress

Reps. Michael McCaul and Michael Turner, speaking from the Munich Security Conference Sunday, insisted that support for Ukraine's fight against Russia has not wavered among members of Congress, despite the introduction of the Ukraine Fatigue Resolution, which is supported by about a dozen Republicans seeking to stop the United States' financial support of the war effort.

Further, McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN's "State of the Union" that "momentum is building" in Congress concerning more advanced weapons for Ukraine and that he hopes President Joe Biden's administration will send fighter jets to Ukraine soon.

"I know that bill had about 10 co-sponsors out of 435 members of Congress," McCaul said. "I would say that support is still very strong and this delegation is bipartisan, very strong support for Ukraine."

The split with the administration and Congress, which is coming from both sides, is that the White House has been "very slow" in getting advanced weapons to Ukraine in the name of being "too provocative."

But if the weapons had been put in from the beginning of Russia's invasion, Ukraine could have been in a different position as the anniversary of the first attack approaches this coming Friday, said McCaul.

The longer the delays are dragged out, the more the United States is playing into Russian President Vladimir Putin's hands, he added.

"He wants this to be a long, protracted war because he knows potentially we could lose the will of the American people and, therefore, the Congress," said McCaul. "We're seeing the same dynamic in the European parliaments — strong support now but they're worried if this doesn't end with a resolution sooner rather than later, this will be an issue for us."

McCaul and Turner, R-Ohio, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, also addressed the growing tensions between the United States and China, including remarks from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the conference calling the U.S. response to the Chinese surveillance balloon that made its way across the country "quite absurd and hysterical" and accusing the United States of using the balloon to divert attention from its domestic problems.

"Remember the balloon was an escalation, and it was not thwarted from its mission," said Turner. "It flew over our missile defense sites and nuclear weapons sites and wasn't taken out of the game until the game was over in the Atlantic."

The Biden administration, he added, must make a shift in taking such incidents more seriously and must be more forward with the American people about the dangers the United States is facing with China.

However, Turner said that as "no one wants a cold war," there is an opportunity to restore "normal dialogue" with China.

"What we want is a China that is not an aggressor state, that's not building up its military and threatening the United States and certainly not making the negative comments it's making instead of openly apologizing for sending a spy balloon over our sensitive military sites," he said.

McCaul also on Sunday called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "send a very stern warning" to Wang that the United States "will not tolerate a spy balloon that is committing espionage over the United States again."

It was "so embarrassing" that a spy balloon could fly over military institutions that hold nuclear warheads and that it could capture images and send them back to Beijing, McCaul added.

"It caused a lot of damage to our national security but also political damage in the sense that Americans saw this with the naked eye, and it was flying so low to the ground," he said.

McCaul also said there is a "unique opportunity" for a bipartisan reaction to China, "one of the greatest threats to this country and the world," and he noted that a select committee on China was approved by a large majority of Democrats.

The spy balloon also had "a lot of American parts," said McCaul, as did a hypersonic missile that was "built on the backbone of American technology."

"They steal a lot of this from us, but we don't have to sell them the very technology they can put in their advanced weapons systems to turn against Taiwan and the Pacific or eventually possibly the United States of America," said McCaul.