Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday pressed former Democrat and current right-wing media darling Tulsi Gabbard on whether she believes the U.S. has a “moral obligation” to provide support to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia.
Gabbard, who claimed earlier this week that the Democratic Party is being controlled by “an elitist cabal of warmongers,” has openly questioned the aid measures the U.S. has taken since the Russian invasion in February. It’s comments like those that have earned her adulation from Hannity’s more isolationist-sounding colleague Tucker Carlson, who gushed Tuesday that “every Republican candidate” who comes on his show should sound like her.
Hannity, not shy about calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “thug” and “murderer,” asked Gabbard what the U.S.’s role should be regarding Ukraine. “Do we stand by and say that’s your problem, or do we have a moral obligation to say we’re not going to let anybody kill innocent men, women and children?”
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Gabbard avoided answering the question directly, instead reiterating her stance that President Biden has been escalating the war rather than working “to bring these parties together.” But as the former Hawaii congresswoman was poised to invoke the words of President John F. Kennedy to make her case that a “negotiated, peaceful solution” was possible, Hannity interjected:
“If I may—we can have a dialogue about it. If you look at it though, he invaded a sovereign country. He’s claiming it to be his own. If anyone said, ‘Hawaii is ours,’ I know it’s your home state, I don’t think you would like that and would want America to come defend you, wouldn’t you?”
“Well,” Gabbard replied, “Hawaii is part of the United States. So yes, that would be a problem for the United States.”
“Once somebody invades a country and kills innocent men, women and children, does the world have an obligation to stop it early, or do you give in to nuclear blackmail?” continued Hannity, who has bristled before at Gabbard’s Putin-friendly talking points. “Somebody could say I’m going to nuke you if you dare support Ukraine or whatever country it happens to be.”
“The path that we are on has been escalating and making this war…” Gabbard said before being cut off.
“No, I’m not asking you that part,” Hannity pressed, prompting Gabbard to ask for the Fox host to let her answer the question.
“If the moral obligation is to do what we can to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, who are suffering death and destruction, it’s to bring about an end to this war as quickly as possible,” Gabbard said. “President Biden has failed to do that, and he has failed the American people, the people of Ukraine, and the world in doing that.”
