Coons: ‘Gravely Concerned’ DeSantis Suggested Ukraine War a Territorial Dispute

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he is “gravely concerned” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said the Ukraine war is a “territorial dispute.”

Guest host Mike Barnicle asked, “Senator, given the lit fuse that is Ukraine and Russia, and given what happened over the Black Sea, do you have any sense of the communication at the top of the house, each house, secretary of defense here, defense minister in Russia, Putin, the president of the United States, any sense at all of communication that might be going on between the two of them? Then as to your last point you made about Ukraine, what do we do about the surrender caucus on the other side of the aisle from you?”

Coons said, “I can’t share anything in detail this morning about what communications may or may not have happened between our most senior military and political and elected leaders. I will say that I’m gravely concerned that we’ve got some significant voices in the Republican Party suggesting that this isn’t a national security interest, suggesting as the governor of Florida just did, that this is merely a territorial dispute.”

He continued, “As you well know, Mike a territorial dispute would be Liechtenstein and Austria going into court and saying our boundary is this side of the river versus that side based on a 1600 treaty. A war is when a 100,000 troops invade a neighboring country without justification, murdering civilians, occupying territory, bombing civilian infrastructure. Russia has invaded Ukraine in a war of aggression. I think that it’s vital to the United States national security interest for us to stand strongly with our European partners and allies in supporting Ukraine’s efforts to resist Russian aggression and expel the invaders from their land.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN