Florida Gov. DeSantis attacks President Biden over Ukraine, but praises Trump

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Gov. Ron DeSantis used the Russian invasion of Ukraine to open a new line of attack on President Biden Monday, saying that “when Trump was president, they didn’t take anything.”

Giving his most expansive comments yet on the Ukraine crisis, following an event in Vero Beach, DeSantis said it was important for the U.S. to exert more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin by crimping that nation’s energy markets, saying: “Hit him where it counts.”

But the Republican governor added, “The problem with that, with Biden, is that he has stepped on the neck of our domestic energy here in the United States.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis uses Russian invasion of Ukraine as opportunity to attack President Biden.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis uses Russian invasion of Ukraine as opportunity to attack President Biden.

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DeSantis ridiculed the Biden administration for acknowledging concerns from environmentalists and halting the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, and for opposing oil drilling on federal lands, even though the Biden White House approved more federal permits last year than were issued in President Trump’s first year.

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DeSantis claimed the U.S. had become energy independent under Trump, which experts dispute. “Now they’re importing millions of barrels of oil, from Russia, so why would you want to do that?” the governor said.

DeSantis, who ran for governor four years ago as a Trump-backed candidate, has since emerged as a potential but far distant rival to the former president among Republican voters in polls featuring two men both seen as positioning for White House runs in 2024.

Gov. Ron DeSantis
Gov. Ron DeSantis

But DeSantis on Monday came to the defense of his political mentor, blaming the media for spending time during Trump’s four years in office investigating whether he “was some type of agent of Russia.”

Trump withheld military assistance from Ukraine in 2019 as he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for help in investigating Biden son Hunter’s business dealings, a move that helped trigger Trump’s first of two impeachments by Congress.

DeSantis cast the relationship differently.

“When I was in Congress and Obama was president, Obama refused to send weapons to Ukraine,” DeSantis said. “When Trump was president, we sent weapons to Ukraine. Putin didn’t like that very much.

“...When Obama was president, Putin took Crimea,” he added. “When Trump was president, they didn’t take anything. And now Biden’s president and they’re rolling into Ukraine.”

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: DeSantis hints Ukraine invasion wouldn't have happened under Trump