Fox News host Maria Bartiromo was just asking questions on Sunday morning when she wondered whether or not the White House wanted to see Ukraine “taken down” and was looking to “sell out” the country.
Bartiromo’s curious questions came less than an hour after she asserted on air that “some people” had told her that the White House doesn’t see Russian President Vladimir Putin as an enemy but rather a “partner” throughout the Ukraine crisis.
During an interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, the South Carolina lawmaker seemingly revealed himself to be one of the Trump-boosting anchor’s sources for her claim that President Joe Biden is kowtowing to Putin throughout the war because of their mutual interests.
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“The Biden administration looks at Putin as a partner for climate change and an Iran Deal maker rather than a war criminal,” Graham declared. “Biden is more afraid of Putin losing than he is excited about Ukraine winning. Let you hear it from me. Victory for Ukraine!”
Describing the United States’ strategy on Ukraine as a “slow walk,” Bartiromo then asked the Republican senator if the U.S. and its NATO allies could do more “without turning this into World War III.” Graham, for his part, insisted that concerns about a potential world war were overblown.
“This is all a bluff. Putin knows it. No one wins a nuclear exchange,” he replied. “I am calling for the crushing of the Russian economy. Even though our war and fight is not with the Russian people, it is with Putin.”
Graham then doubled down on his calls for the Russian leader to be assassinated, adding that “the only way this war ends is with Putin going to jail or being taken out by his own people.”
After the hawkish senator blasted the administration for stopping the transfer of Polish jets to Ukraine over concerns it “could be mistaken for an escalatory step,” Bartiromo then brought up Israel’s attempt to broker peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has spoken to both countries’ leaders and even reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender. (Both Ukraine and Israel deny those reports, and Israel’s foreign minister has since condemned Russia’s unprovoked invasion.)
Graham, a pro-Israeli stalwart, said that he understood the position Israel is currently in, pointing out that the country relies on Russia to provide security coordination within Syria as Israel carries out counterterrorism strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah targets. At the same time, the senator said he opposed any ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia.
“It cannot end with the sellout of Ukraine,” he said. “It cannot end where we give half of Ukraine to Putin. What he will do is consolidate his power and a year or two from now take the rest. Because he does not want a buffer from NATO. He wants to reconstruct the Soviet Union.”
Graham continued: “I think the Ukrainians can win, but what breaks my heart is it appears Biden is more worried about Putin losing than Ukraine winning. And that is despicable and sad!”
Piggybacking off of Graham’s remarks, Bartiromo then asked the Trump lackey an extremely loaded question that suggested the White House is actively working against an American ally as an adversary wages an increasingly bloody war against it.
“So you think this is a sellout of Ukraine by both the Biden administration as well as the Israelis, potentially wanting to see Ukraine taken down?” Bartiromo exclaimed.
Graham, though, wanted to clarify that he didn’t think that was the case with Israel. As for the White House, well, not so much.
“I’m not saying it about Israel, I am saying that they have discussions with Putin—he is a war criminal,” he proclaimed. “He wants all of Ukraine, eventually, and he will take it if we do not stop him here.”
Graham added: “I’m not suggesting that Israel is selling out Ukraine, I am suggesting that the Biden administration has no stomach for this fight. The reason they are slow-walking military aid to the Ukrainians is they never expected Putin to lose and they cannot embrace the idea that he would lose!”
Notably, nowhere in this interview did either Graham or Bartiromo mention former President Donald Trump’s continued reluctance to criticize Putin—or note that Trump was impeached for threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure the country to investigate Biden ahead of the 2020 election.
Over the past few weeks, Bartiromo—along with many of her Fox News colleagues—has been all over the map with her commentary on the rising international crisis. Just days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in fact, Bartiromo repeatedly suggested that the White House was fabricating the threat of war in order to distract from Fox News’ relentlessly misleading coverage of Special Counsel John Durham’s latest filing.
“Was this whole thing an effort to take everybody’s attention away from what Hillary Clinton did?” Bartiromo declared at one point, insisting that the administration was running interference for the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
