Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., on Newsmax Friday defended Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has come under fire for appearing to grant Russia multiple concessions ahead of negotiations to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, saying the secretary is working with limited information.
Hegseth said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Wednesday that "The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement," adding that no U.S. troops will be deployed to Ukraine "as part of any security guarantee." He also said that Ukraine retaining all of its territory is an unrealistic objective.
On Thursday, Hegseth said that "everything is on the table" during the negotiations despite his earlier remarks.
When asked about Hegseth walking back his comments, McCormick told "National Report" that the secretary is "going by day-by-day information," adding, "I've been to Ukraine. I've actually met with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and actually talked about the options that they had on the table, what they were willing to accept."
McCormick added, "Obviously, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has totally different ideas. If you listen to his rhetoric, it's something out of Peter the Great. You can see the books on the shelf literally speaking for him where he talks about even what Catherine the Great talked about, 'I can only secure my borders by expanding them.'"
McCormick said that Putin "doesn't talk like the old USSR; he talks like the old Russian Empire, so to get to some sort of agreement, we're going to have to come from an incredible position of strength."
McCormick added that the U.S. should "cut off their funding through their oil sales," and "give Ukraine whatever they need to end this war militarily and actually make it so painful that Russia says, 'You know what? I don't want to be in this.'"
McCormick went on to praise Trump as "obviously a strong president," adding, "He wants peace" and will enter negotiations asking, "What can I bring to the table?"
McCormick said, "Crimea, realistically speaking, won't come back to Ukraine. That's going to be part of the brokered deal. I think we're going to have to once again reinforce that idea; we're going to secure Ukraine as an ally like we did in the original peace talks."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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