Mike Pence pounces on Ron DeSantis over aid to Ukraine

Florida governor draws criticism from Republican rivals for playing down significance of Russian threat.

Mike Pence says those who suggest the US can’t take care of its problems at home and still remain the leader of the free world are selling America. Picture: AFP

Former US vice-president Mike Pence, without mentioning Ron DeSantis by name, rebuked the Florida governor on Saturday for his isolationist approach to the war in Ukraine.

Mr DeSantis, a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate, last week called the Russian invasion a “territorial dispute”, triggering backlash on Capitol Hill and from some donors and voters.

Mr Pence repeated the phrase Mr DeSantis used to describe the war as he spoke to a conservative audience in Iowa, where the first GOP nominating contest will be held in less than a year.

“The war in Ukraine is not a territorial dispute,” he said to applause. “It is a Russian invasion and I believe the United States of America needs to continue to demand that the free world join us in giving the courageous fighters in Ukraine the resources that they need to repel the Russian invasion. It’s not our war, but freedom is our fight.”

A sharp divide inside the GOP over US involvement in Ukraine has made Mr DeSantis the target of widespread Republican criticism for suggesting America should focus on problems closer to home. His approach aligns him with former president Donald Trump, who is warning the conflict could cause “World War III”. “There must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad,” Mr Trump said in a campaign video last Thursday.

Mr Pence said those who suggest the US can’t take care of its problems at home and still remain the leader of the free world are selling America short.

“That’s a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth,” he said. “We can do both.”

The stances of Mr DeSantis and Mr Trump provide a potential opening for 2024 presidential hopefuls who hold a more traditional, hawkish foreign policy view and are struggling to dent the polling dominance of the governor and former president.

Beside Mr Pence, former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie all have expressed strong support for Ukraine. Ms Haley has announced her 2024 candidacy, while the others are still considering entry into the race.

Polling shows a steady decline in Republican support for aiding Ukraine over the past year.

A Gallup survey in January showed Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to support US involvement in the war, with four in five agreeing America should support Ukraine in reclaiming territory, even if it is a prolonged conflict, while 53 per cent of Republicans said that.

Francis Rooney, a Florida-based donor, former congressman and DeSantis backer, said he isn’t pleased with Mr DeSantis’s comments about the war. “I would be concerned if he took it further,” he said. “I don’t think it does him any good to be aligned with Trump in anything.” Mr DeSantis’s position is more nuanced than some are portraying it, Mr Rooney added, but he hopes the Florida governor doesn’t join the voices wanting to pull back from supporting Ukraine. “It’s the same kind of isolationism that got us into a couple of world wars,” he said.

Ms Haley has suggested that Mr DeSantis is simply copying Mr Trump and that “Republicans deserve a choice, not an echo.” During an appearance Thursday in Florida, Ms Haley was direct. “With all due respect, your governor is wrong,” she said to applause. “We need to have the back of Ukraine.”

Senator Marco Rubio, a fellow Floridian and unsuccessful 2016 presidential candidate, also criticised Mr DeSantis on the issue. “Obviously, he doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor,” Senator Rubio said.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who is also considering a GOP presidential bid, said last week he thought what Mr DeSantis said about Ukraine was “naive”.

Mr Hutchinson, Ms Haley and Mr Scott are among the declared and prospective 2024 GOP candidates scheduled to appear Saturday at a South Carolina event focused on social issues.

An aide to Mr DeSantis declined to comment.

Bill Kristol, co-founder of the now-closed conservative Weekly Standard magazine and a critic of Mr Trump, said he thinks there is room in the GOP primary for a candidate more supportive of Ukraine, and more critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, than are Mr DeSantis and Mr Trump.

“It might not be a winning lane, obviously, but there is some nontrivial number of Republican primary voters who are anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine,” Mr Kristol said. “But to get them to vote on this, a third candidate has to make an issue of it, which means criticising Trump and DeSantis on this issue, not just quietly differing with them.”

Kevin Rodden, a retired intelligence analyst who lives in Holly Springs, North Carolina, was so upset by the position Mr DeSantis took that he wrote a letter to him expressing his displeasure.

The 82-year-old said in an interview that he considers himself a “conservative Republican” and is part of a family with deep military roots. The position Mr DeSantis took, he said, made him more interested in Ms Haley as the party’s nominee.

“It showed you are a complete neophyte in world affairs,” Mr Rodden wrote to Mr DeSantis. “The battle for Ukraine, another in the continuing fight of civilisation against the barbarians, is pivotal in today’s conflict between the West and Russia and China.”

Mr DeSantis’s stance also struck some as at odds with more-hawkish views he espoused as a congressman, including criticism of the Obama administration for not arming Ukraine during Mr Putin’s earlier advances, while invoking Ronald Reagan’s peace-through-strength doctrine.

Kori Schake, director of foreign and defence policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called Mr DeSantis’s current position disappointing. Reagan, she added, “understood America has an interest in shaping the international order because that’s the most cost effective way to keep ourselves safe and prosperous”.

The Wall Street Journal