"President Trump has said that he believes and supports Ukraine's survival and strength, but he also thinks that Europe should do more," Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Trump "presided for four years over peace and stability," Cotton told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "I understand that European leaders and Democrats here in America didn't care for some of the language or rhetoric he used.
"I would say that was necessary to get tough on foreign leaders, who are our putative allies, who had been free riding off of American military strength for 35 years. And what you saw is European leaders actually finally investing in their common defense. That's something they'll do again when President Trump is back in the White House."
The proof is in the reality of Vladimir Putin's desire to reconstitute the old Soviet Union was effectively held in abeyance under Trump, according to Cotton.
"I think it's important to look at the context of what's happened in Ukraine over the last 10 years," Cotton told Tapper. "I've noticed that Vladimir Putin only invades Ukraine when Democrats are president. It happened under Barack Obama, it happened to Joe Biden, it didn't happen with Donald Trump.
"In fact, the weapons that Ukraine used in the early days of this war, to fend off the Russian invasion, are the weapons that Donald Trump sent, that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had refused to send."
It all comes back to the weakness Biden showed in the unconditional surrender of Afghanistan back to the Taliban, an opportunity Putin seized to consider "taking a piece" of Ukraine as President Joe Biden suggested before the invasion began.
"One reason why Vladimir Putin thought he could get away with going for the jugular in Ukraine is because of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which projected weakness and indecision," Cotton continued. "It was just a few weeks later that he began to mass troops on Ukraine's border."
Despite narratives to the contrary, Trump backs Ukraine against Russian aggression, even as he said Saturday in a Turning Point Action speech that aired on Newsmax, that every time President Volodymyr Zelenskyy comes to America he walks away with "$60 billion."
"But what we all want is a return to the peace and stability that we had when President Trump was president, not the war and chaos we've seen over the last four years," Cotton said.
As for going in with Trump as a potential vice presidential running mate, Cotton was interested but he is fully committed to serving in the Senate as he had been elected to do.
"I think if the president asked you to serve in any capacity in our great nation, you'd have to consider it, but I also know that there's probably only one person who knows who's on his short list, and I suspect the president will make a decision about his vice president when he's ready," Cotton concluded. "And it'll be a good decision for him ... but more importantly a good decision for the country.
"If the president asked me to serve in any capacity, I would, of course entertain it. But right now I'm very happy being a senator representing the people of Arkansas and working to elect President Trump and the majority of the Congress so we can begin to repair some of the damage that Joe Biden and the Democrats have inflicted over these last four years."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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