Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt on Monday downplayed President Joe Biden's surprise trip to Ukraine, questioning the "value of it, militarily."
Appearing on Newsmax's "Wake Up America," Holt suggested the trip wasn't done sooner because of fallout over the questionable relationship between Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and Ukraine.
"I don't know why they did it. I honestly don't see the value of it militarily," Holt said, noting "right now, this war is getting down to a war … of attrition.
"It's getting more dangerous, not less dangerous," according to Holt, because it was a miscalculation to alert Russia not to do anything about the trip.
"I'm simply astonished. I'm simply stunned as a military officer," he said. "If I was in the ramp-up to the planning of that secret trip, the last thing I would advise anybody is, Hey, go ahead and tip your enemy off and let them know that we're going to be coming because we don't want anything to happen … I think that's very risky and foolhardy."
Then politically, "From the optics … we all know what his relationship is with his son to Ukraine. I think, politically, that's why they avoided him going there from the outset."
Holt also pointed to the "missing elements" in the Ukraine-Russia war so far, including the lack of diplomacy and the lack of attention to problems in the U.S.
"Militarily, the missing element has been decisive air power, and that's why we're just seeing ammo stocks getting chewed up," he said. "But where's the diplomacy been the entire year? We've got folks like [GOP] Sen. [Mitch] McConnell a year later, saying, 'This is America's No. 1 priority.' Really?
"Not the southern border, not near his own state, where there's dangerous chemicals flowing into the Ohio River? We don't have any other top problems, inflation? None of that? … America would really like to see transparency and accountability for what the costs of supporting Ukraine, which we support, are."
Holt added that NATO also has to "get it together and logistically" determine what the defense of Ukraine will involve "with the logistics that we have."
"And if it's not possible, then we've all got to come together, President [Volodymyr] Zylenskyy included, and talk about what can be achieved because there's not infinite resources in the world to get this done," Holt said.
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