Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said during an interview Sunday that an inflection point is nearing: a pursuit of "peace" or "World War III."
"Really, there's two viable paths here," Gabbard said on "Fox News Sunday." "One is that this war continues on as it has for over three years. More and more Ukrainians will lose their lives."
"The alternative to this ... requires bringing interested parties to the table to conduct these negotiations. ... Neither side is going to be happy — very likely — with the outcome. But ultimately it needs to lead to peace," she continued.
"And that is what President [Donald] Trump is so committed to, because he recognizes that the longer this goes on, not only are more Ukrainians losing their lives, but it increases the potential of this escalation toward World War III that he warned against — as he sat there with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy — saying, 'He's gambling with World War III.' That is not a cost President Trump is willing to accept."
Gabbard said that as Trump has been pushing for peace negotiations, leaders in Europe have been doubling down.
"We finally have a president who is going to stand up strongly and fiercely and unwaveringly for the cause of peace and freedom for the American people. I think those who are criticizing his efforts in this way are showing they are not committed to peace," she said.
"And in the case of many of those European countries ... they are not committed to the cause and values of freedom. Even though they speak of this, we heard very clearly during Vice President [JD] Vance's speech in Munich different examples of how these European partners and longtime allies in many cases are actually implementing policies that undermine democracy that shows that they don't actually believe in the voices of the people being heard, and implementing anti-freedom policies.
"We're seeing this in the United Kingdom. We're seeing this in Germany. We saw it with the tossing out of the elections in Romania."
"There's something fundamentally deeper here that shows a huge difference and divergence between the values that President Trump and Vice President Vance are fighting for, the values that are enshrined in our Constitution, the interests of the American people in our peace and freedom and national security versus those of many of these European countries who are coming to Zelenskyy's side as he walked out of the White House, saying, basically, that they are going to support him in continuing this war and that they don't stand with us around these fundamental values of freedom."
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