McCaul: Trump’s Incoming NatSec Team Believes ‘We Cannot Afford To Lose Ukraine To Russia’

Rep. Micheal McCaul (R-TX), Chairman Emeritus of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Homeland Security, said during an interview over the weekend that the special envoy President-elect Donald Trump has tapped for Ukraine and Russia believes that the U.S. cannot afford to lose Ukraine to Russia.

McCaul’s remarks on ABC News’ “This Week” come just a couple weeks before Trump takes office and retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg begins his task of trying to bring the Russia’s war inside of Ukraine to a quick conclusion.

“Keith Kellogg, the special envoy, I’ve talked to him many times,” McCaul said. “He believes that we cannot afford to lose Ukraine to Russia. That would be a horrible foreign policy decision that would put us in the position of losing to Russia in Ukraine, and threatening Eastern Europe.”

“And the fact is, I can’t overemphasize, as I have to my colleagues, it’s not just Putin,” he continued. “Putin is aligned with Chairman Xi in China, who threatens the Indo-Pacific. He’s also aligned with the Ayatollah in the Middle East who we have seen threatened Israel. And they’re all in this together. And Kim Jong-un sent 10,000 troops of his own to fight Ukraine’s.”

“I just think that they’re all in this together,” he added. “We’ve got to take it seriously. If we can negotiate a peaceful settlement, great, but I think the Ukrainians need more leverage that the current administration has not given them and when they have that leverage going to the table they’ll have more, I think, power.”

He said that whatever terms are that are negotiated to bring the war to an end, they need to be ones that “do not throw Ukraine under the bus.”

“They were thrown under the bus in the Budapest agreements where they gave up all their nuclear weapons in assurance for security, and guess what happened? There was none,” he said. “And if there is a deal cut, we have to have teeth in that enforcement agreement such that if Russia ever invades again, there will be consequences because they gave up all their nuclear weapons, Ukraine did, and there was no response after the Budapest agreement on that.”

WATCH:

On Russia’s war in Ukraine, GOP Rep. Michael McCaul says, “I think President Trump does want to end the war, have a peaceful negotiation. We’re all for that, but it’s got to be on terms that do not throw Ukraine under the bus.” https://t.co/uWVTJmJW4w pic.twitter.com/uI5yKbjz0g

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 5, 2025