President Joe Biden has not persuaded Europe to do more when it comes to Ukraine, even amid Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats that the West and NATO will be "at war with Russia" if Ukraine uses long-range missiles to strike inside his country, former Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie tells Newsmax.
"Right now, we know the Iranians are transferring ballistic missiles to the Russians, but the Germans and the French are some of the richest nations on the planet and they are sitting by and allowing these things to happen without using what should be the deterrent powers of their own weapons," Wilkie told Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
The French and German governments report spending billions of dollars on Ukraine, including military equipment and training the country's military.
For the period from January 2022 to June 2024, Ukraine received the most support for weapons and equipment from the United States.
But, Wilkie said that he believes Russia and Ukraine are heading toward a negotiation, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has "bitten off large chunks of the Russian territory."
"You certainly will if [former President] Donald Trump is in office," he added. "The Donbas region that Putin bit off during the Clinton administration is now so populated with Russians that the Ukrainians can't take it back," he added. "I could see the negotiations going in a way where they concede Donbas to get their other territories back, and that allows Putin to escape with what's left of his army intact. But the only kind of world leader who could pull this off and make it stick is Donald Trump."
Wilkie, however, said he does not think Putin's threats of widespread war will pan out.
"He's had about two dozen red lines that have been crossed," he said. "Remember, he's been decimated," he said. "He has almost nothing left of his army that started this fight two years ago, except nuclear weapons."
Meanwhile, "if we were dealing with [Adolph] Hitler," Wilkie said he'd be more concerned about Putin's plans for expanding the war.
"This guy is a gangster," said Wilkie. "He is a hyped-up gangster of the type that you see on the streets of New York in the sense that in the end, he wants to stay rich. He wants to stay alive and to do what he has been threatening to do now for two years."
Wilkie on Friday also spoke out about media bias, particularly with how Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are treated.
"If you go back to the debate, Linsey Davis began her softball questioning of the vice president by saying Israel has killed 40,000 Palestinians. You notice she didn't start that question with Oct. 7, that Hamas butchered men, women, and children," said Wilkie.
"And she didn't include in that 40,000 figure the fact that between 17 and 20,000 of those casualties were actually Hamas terrorists. There were 10,000 in those numbers that no one has verified other than the terrorists… that's the kind of media bias and left-wing bias that is putting Israel at risk. And I think for the United States, the Israeli issue is the one that should be on the front burner."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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