Former President
Trump has refused to say
whether he believes
Russia should win the war
or if Putin is a war criminal.
Former Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
referred to Russia's invasion
of Ukraine as a, quote,
territorial dispute.
What do you think of that?
I think that that's a mistake
that too many have made.
That's exactly
what got the Europeans
in this position
with Russia in the first place,
is that they're too trustful.
You can't be trustful of a regime
that goes in and tries to take away
people's freedoms.
What we need to understand
is that Ukraine has the ability to win.
But we have to think bigger than that.
And for them to sit there
and say that
this is a territorial dispute,
that's just not the case
to say that we should stay neutral.
It is in the best interests of America.
It's in the best interests
of our national security
for Ukraine to win.
We have to see this through.
We have to finish it.
I if I misspoke, I meant to say that.
Trump refused to say whether he believes
Ukraine should win the war.
But you obviously know
what I was talking about.
You have called Putin
a, quote, evil tyrant,
and you've said he cannot be trusted.
How do you deal with a foreign leader
that you cannot trust?
Well, first of all,
let's look at where we are.
So you've got Russia invading Ukraine.
You've got North Korea
testing ballistic missiles.
You've got Iran trying to build a bomb.
We've got chaos everywhere. Right.
But none of that would have happened
had we not had that debacle.
In Afghanistan.
The idea that we left
Bagram Air Force Base
in the middle of the night
without telling our allies
who stood shoulder
to shoulder with us for decades
because we asked them to be there.
Think about what that told our friends.
More importantly,
think about what that told our enemies.
So now you have this happening.
None of this should have happened.
Biden had a whole year
to prevent that war in Ukraine,
and he didn't do it.
Russia surrounded Ukraine
where was everybody?
There was an opportunity to stop it.
That's what we have to make sure.
So when you're dealing with
Russia and China,
I'll give you an example.
The Russian plane knocked down our U.S.
drone a couple of weeks ago.
Remember that?
What do we do about it?
Nothing.
You know what I would have done
if I was president?
Put two drones up there and a fighter jet
and put our naval fleet
back in the Black Sea
because it never should have
left in the first place.
Let me ask you
this, because
you brought up
the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Did you disagree with the peace treaty
that was negotiated by Secretary
Pompeo and President Trump
that set the stage for the withdrawal
in 20, 21
You can never trust the Taliban.
They are terrorists.
And part of what it means to keep
America safe is to know who
your enemy is.
And when you're
and this is what they did
with the Iran deal
when they went and gave all of that cash
to get into the Iran deal,
they thought that Iran would stop
This is a regime that says death
to America, death to Israel every day.
No amount of money changes
the way they think.
So when you go to the Taliban.
Yeah, they wanted all of that money.
And by the way,
Biden left them $7 billion worth
of military equipment
while they hauled out of there
in the middle of the night.
But when you pay terrorists off,
all they do is more terrorism
that doesn't ever keep anyone safe.
Those are the lessons we need to learn.
Those are
we can't keep repeating
these same mistakes over and over again.
Yeah, I think they left the equipment.
It's a distinction without a difference.
They left the equipment
for the Afghan military,
but then the Afghan military
does military at all. Is already fallen.
We know there was no
they had hauled it out of Afghanistan.
So you were the U.S.
ambassador to the U.N.
under President Trump.
As I have noted, on Friday, Mr.
Trump congratulated Kim Jong un
because North Korea had ascended
to a leadership role in the World
Health Organization.
What was your reaction to that?
And were you uncomfortable with how Mr.
Trump dealt with
and how his attitude was towards
Kim Jong un while you worked at the U.N.?
I mean, Kim Jong un is a thug.
And if you see what he has done
to his own people in North Korea,
when money went to North Korea,
it didn't go to feed their people.
It went to feed their nuclear program.
There's nothing
good or decent about Kim Jong un.
There's no reason
we should ever congratulate
the fact
that they are now
vice chair of the World
Health Organization.
And it goes to the fact
that also the World Health
Organization is a farce to start with.
We saw that during COVID.
So it did bother you
and you didn't want
you didn't like this
congratulating of Kim Jong un
and we didn't like how we dealt with him.
I don't think we ever should
congratulate dictators,
congratulate our friends, don't
congratulate our enemies.
It emboldens them when we do that.
So I want to go to another Iowa voter
group House from Urbandale.
The president of
Living History farms
an agricultural museum.
She's also worked on Republican campaigns
and in George H.W.
Bush's administration.
Ruth,
thank you for being in Iowa
so often already.
We appreciate it.
We're going to keep on coming back.
My question is,
please share your views
and approach to US-China relations
and its impact on trade for Iowa farmers.
Great question.
So China,
without question, is our number one
national security threat.
And let's go back in history.
For too long,
Republican and Democrat presidents
thought that if they were nice to China,
China would want to be like us.
That's narcissistic.
China's blessing.
China does not want to be like us.
They want to be communist China.
We have to change the way we treat them.
So if you know
that, let's look at where China is now.
They've built up their military.
They have the largest naval fleet
in the world.
They have more
air defense systems than we do
They just came out
with the fifth generation fighter jet.
Had they do it
by stealing our intellectual property
that we handed them on a silver platter.
They steal $600 billion worth
of intellectual property from us
every year.
President Xi started a commission
that he personally chairs,
says any company
that does business in China
has to cooperate
with the Chinese military.
Think about our tech companies.
Think about all of our financial data.
Think about all of your health care data.
Think about your children's
lifestyle data.
And now know that the Chinese military
has all of that.
President Xi has said whoever owns
the data owns the world.
And that's why
they're sending spy balloons.
That's why they're buying up
400,000 worth of acres
worth of farmland
near our most sensitive
military installations.
That's what they're doing now.
Having said that.
How do you deal with China
when you know we've got an economy
that's so intertwined?
You do it
through a national security lens.
Strictly
through a national security lens.
So I don't care if Americans buy
T-shirts and light bulbs from China
any more than I care of that
if the Chinese buy
agricultural products from our farmers,
I welcome that.
What I do care about is
if it's a national security risk.
When you saw we had COVID,
they told you to put on a mask
the masks were made in China.
They told you to take a home COVID test.
You turned it over. It was made in China.
You go down to your local drugstore.
All those medicines are made in China.
What I will bless you.
What I will focus on is
when when I become president,
the very first day,
you look at it
and say,
if China pulled the rug out
from under us tomorrow,
would we be ready?
Would we be safe?
That's what we need to do.
So I don't want us exporting
any tech equipment to them.
I want
us to make sure we're focused
and by the way, for our farmers.
I don't want our farmers
to just sell to China.
I will be their ambassador
in South Carolina.
When I was governor,
I sold South Carolina to everyone.
I will sell our our farmers
and all of their products
to Japan, to Australia,
to South Korea, to Israel.
We can sell it to other countries.
So you mentioned Taiwan earlier
about Ukraine and Russia being Russian,
meaning Ukraine could embolden
China to invade Taiwan.
It's one of the biggest flashpoints,
as you know,
in the US-China relationship.
And President Biden
has repeatedly said that U.S.
forces would defend Taiwan
if China invades.
Would you make that same commitment?
Well, I think he's looking at this
the wrong way. It's about preventing war.
So what will prevent China
from even going into Taiwan
in the first place?
There are two things
that China and Russia
never wanted us to have.
They never wanted us
to have a strong military
and they never wanted us
to be energy independent.
We need to do both of those things.
Strong militaries don't start wars.
Strong militaries prevent wars.
That's the first thing that we
have to have.
So the second thing,
the second hold on, I'm getting there.
The second thing is
we should be supplying
the Taiwanese military
what they need to do
to defend themselves.
So I hosted the Taiwanese ambassador
several months ago
and brought her to the South
Carolina Army National Guard
so she could see
how we train up our citizens what we do,
what they need to be doing in Taiwan
to defend themselves.
You go and make sure
that you lift them up
so that they can do for themselves
like the Ukrainians
are doing for themselves.
But when China sees that Taiwan
is got the backing of their allies,
and when China sees that Ukraine
just beat Russia,
they won't even move into Taiwan.
That should be
one of the things about the
United States
vis a vis
Taiwan is
there used to be a thing
called strategic ambiguity
where the US President
I know you know this well,
the US
President would not say directly
one way or the other Would U.S.
forces defend Taiwan if China invaded
and President Biden broke with that.
And I'm wondering
if you would to know
what I will tell you is
we are going to make sure
they have the equipment, the ammunition
and the training to win themselves.