Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., on Sunday said the raging Russian war with Ukraine proves the United States has to become energy independent.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Scott said the United States has “a lot to do” to help Ukraine.
“Whatever it takes, whatever the United States needs to do, they need to do today and get [fighter] planes there because that's what [Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] needs,” Scott said a day after he took part in a Zoom conference between Congress and the Ukrainian leader.
“He's got to have, he's got to have the missiles he needs, the anti-tank, anti-air missiles. We have got to get that to him quickly,” Scott said. “We've got to provide more resources to make sure that they can defend themselves. … Ukrainian people are working so hard to defend freedom, and they might be the deciding factor whether [Russian President Vladimir] Putin goes into another country that we have to go into with all of our NATO allies.”
Scott stressed energy independence for the United States is key.
“Who in their right mind doesn't believe that America should do everything we can to be energy independent so we're not dependent on anybody?” he said. “And, by the way, we can help our allies. We've got resources here. But the Biden administration wants to get oil from [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro, who's killing his own citizens and Iran who's causing havoc all over the world but not oil from Texas or Alaska.”
According to Scott, “every American company, every retailer, they ought to shut down any operations in both Russia and Belarus, and we've got to sanction Belarus and Russia the same way.”
“We need to figure out how to be energy independent, and we've got to get back to being energy independent the way we were under [former] President [Donald] Trump,” Scott declared. “So we've got a lot of work to do. ..We need action to get planes to Ukraine, we need to get action to get missiles, anti-tank aircraft missiles and anti-air missiles, that's what we need to be doing. That the most important thing we can do. Every bit of resources.”
Scott also defended his 11-point plan for GOP to do to defeat Democrats and win back the Senate and White House.
“I believe we've got to talk about what we're going to do… believe [GOP California Rep.] Kevin McCarthy, …[GOP Louisiana Rep. Steve] Scalise are going to get a majority in the Senate. What are we going to do to change the direction of the country? The radical left has taken over everything, not just the Democratic Party, the media, culture, all of these things. So I put out an 11-step planning the Democrats are clearly -- they don't like it."
“Let's get rid of racial politics,” he added. “We've got to support the police. ..we've got to have our border secure, stop being globalists and focus on how you build this country so we can help other countries.”
“We need to get away from being dependent on anybody whether it's oil or anything,” he declared.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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