An irate Tucker Carlson in heated clash with Mike Pence over US support Ukraine, former VP jabs back

• Tucker Carlson and Mike Pence clashed over US support of Ukraine.

• Carlson claimed that Ukraine was persecuting Christians and questioned the US's spending on the war.

• Pence's comments about supporting Ukraine were largely met with a muted response from the crowd.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson clashed with former Vice President Mike Pence over Ukraine at a GOP candidate forum in Iowa.

In the conversation, Carlson claimed that the Ukrainian government was arresting priests for "having views they disagree with" and claimed that this was an attack on "religious liberty."

"I sincerely wonder how a Christian leader could support the arrest of Christians for having different views," Carlson said.

But Pence disagreed with Carlson's description of events in Ukraine.

"I asked the Christian leader in Kyiv if that was, in fact, happening, and he assured me it was not. People were not being persecuted for their religious beliefs," Pence said.

Ukraine has tried to limit the influence of the Russia-tied Ukrainian Orthodox Church due to its support of Russia's invasion, not because of its religious beliefs.

The former vice president noted that he and Carlson disagreed strongly on Ukraine and said he believed "that it is in the interests of the United States of America to continue to give the Ukrainian military the resources they need."

Carlson appeared irritated by Pence's response and listed several internal issues with the US, including increasing crime.

"And yet your concern is that the Ukrainians, a country that most people can't find on a map, who've received tens of billions of US tax dollars, don't have enough tanks."

Loud cheers from the crowd greeted Carlson's comments, while Pence's were met with a muted response.

Although the GOP is roughly evenly divided on the issue of American support for Ukraine, the Iowa crowd was evidently in favor of Carlson's more hardline stance.

Pence appeared on the back foot during the exchange, allowing Carlson to sway the conversation toward his own narrative on Ukraine.

The two continued to spar over the issue, with the softly-spoken Pence at one point interjecting, with his voice raised: "The problem is you won't accept my answer."

The former vice president has gone against other GOP presidential candidates, including Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, by disagreeing that the US should scale back its involvement in the war.

Influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats sponsored the forum in Des Moines, Iowa. The roster included six presidential contenders: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina's Sen. Tim Scott, former Vice President Mike Pence, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Former President Donald Trump and Republican frontrunner was a no-show, citing scheduling conflicts, per Politico.

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