Kilmeade Attacks Vivek, Calls His Ukraine Plan ‘Just Ridiculous’
Fox News Channel personality Brian Kilmeade attracted a mixed bag of attention after berating Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) for voting in favor of removing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House speaker earlier this year.
The day after the fourth Republican presidential primary debate, Kilmeade built on his emerging reputation for acting as an attack dog against Republicans. Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was a guest on “Fox & Friends” early Thursday and was soon hammered with questions regarding his stance on the war in Ukraine.
“Foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom,” Ramaswamy said during Wednesday’s debate, taking aim at rival and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. “I want everybody at home to know that I was the first person to say that we need a reasonable, peace-dealing Ukraine. Now a lot of the neocons are quietly coming along to that position with the exceptions of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden, who still support what I believe is a pointless war in Ukraine. I think those with foreign policy experience — one thing Nikki Haley and Joe Biden have in common — is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in Eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for.”
The tense exchange on stage spilled over into the next morning’s Fox News Channel broadcast.
Kilmeade claimed that Ramaswamy’s proposal is “just ridiculous” and described it as one through which Russia “can have Ukraine if they promise not to have an alliance with China.”
He then pressed the candidate to answer a series of pointed questions: “Vivek, are you comfortable with Russia taking as much of Ukraine as they want? Are you comfortable pulling all of our aid out and do you really believe that Vladimir Putin will agree not to have an alliance with China?”
As Ramaswamy attempted to defend his stance, insisting that Russia should face “serious consequences” for any breach of a possible deal and asserting that the Ukraine war “doesn’t advance U.S. interests,” Kilmeade interrupted several times.
After the host dismissed Ramaswamy as “naive,” the entrepreneur turned the tables on him.
“You want to call me naive?” he asked. “I actually understand what the heck I’m talking about here.”
