Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio
Washington D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Full Circle Florida to discuss protecting Florida’s children and the latest on the conflict in Russia and Ukraine. See below for highlights and watch part one and part two.
On whether Vladimir Putin is committing war crimes in Ukraine:
“There’s no doubt [Vladimir Putin is] a war criminal. [He’s] targeting civilians and indiscriminately bombing civilian sites like hospitals, [and launching] targets for sniper fire. People that are fleeing [Ukraine] through humanitarian corridors.”
On what is most concerning about the war in Ukraine:
“The most worrisome part of it is that Putin is actually in a very impossible position. There’s no victory for him in Ukraine. The best case scenario for him is a protracted and costly military victory followed by a very costly and painful long term military occupation, which he can’t afford, and would face a persistent insurgency. That’s his best case scenario. His worst case scenario is a military quagmire that ends in humiliation.
“I’m deeply concerned that he would expand this to Transnistria, which is a breakaway region of Moldova, where there are already Russian troops [present]. I’m concerned about the use of chemical or biological weapons as a false flag, to blame NATO or Ukraine for. I’m concerned about Russia targeting the supply convoys that are coming into Ukraine from NATO countries, which would in turn raise the stakes and the possibility of a conflict with NATO, which would turn into a broader one.”
On President Joe Biden’s decision to cut off all Russian oil imports:
“It’s the right thing to do. We import about 200,000 barrels of Russian oil a day, which is about less than eight percent of our total petroleum products, and we can easily make up for it by producing American oil.
“I don’t understand what the opposition to that is. How is a barrel of oil produced in America any worse for the climate than a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia, Canada, or anywhere else on the planet… We can very quickly, experts tell me, in less than 6 months, be in a position where we’ve more than made up for it based on domestic production. That’s what we should be doing. That should be the plan.”
On what the government can do to address the inflation crisis:
“We knew the conflict [in Ukraine] was coming. I knew and this administration knew] as early as late last year that invasion of Ukraine was highly likely. We knew that an invasion of Ukraine would lead to higher oil prices. Anytime oil-producing countries are involved in a conflict, oil prices go up. They were already going up. We should have begun to put in place the ability to replace not just Russian oil, but to add more of our own domestic production as a way of lowering prices when OPEC and others are simply not going to increase production. We knew that. We should have started working on that months ago. Now that’s what we should be doing.
“It’s pretty clear that the price of all kinds of goods are high… One [reason] is the disruptions created by COVID and its restrictions that have kept a lot of places closed. We have a chronic shortage of truckers and people willing to drive trucks. We have a lot of regulations that keep some truckers from operating in certain states if they’re not unionized… those should be gotten rid of.
“This is the perfect opportunity right now for this country to focus on returning supply chains to this country. America has to be a place that makes more things again. [The conflict in]Ukraine and before that, COVID, have revealed to us how vulnerable our supply chains are, how overextended they are – in places far away. Any disruption, be it a war or being cut off deliberately could put us into economic chaos.”
On the current makeup of the Republican Party:
“Our party has and continues to be a diverse party. It is a party that has people with all kinds of views, from Senator Collins of Maine to Senator Cruz in Texas. We have a wide range of different views on things.
“There’s a lot more ideological diversity in the Republican Party than there is in the Democratic Party. In the Democratic Party, no matter what your personal views may be, if you don’t fall in line with leadership, they crack down on you. You can ask Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona what that means. You can ask Joe Manchin what that means. Kyrsten Sinema today is the target of a detailed, specific and committed effort to destroy her from within the Democratic Party, because they do not tolerate differences of views on ideology and how they vote. That’s not true in the Republican Party.
“We have a lot of diversity in our party. I don’t have to agree with every view in our party to understand that, generally, that diversity is good. Obviously [we don’t want] crazies and hate mongers, but certainly people that have concrete ideas that they’re offering.”
On the Florida legislature’s Parental Rights in Education bill:
“To call it ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ which is what people have done, is ridiculous. That’s not what the bill is about at all. The bill basically says that sexual orientation is just not something schools should be talking to children about, children from kindergarten to 6th grade.
“Why are schools talking to kids about that? We send our kids to school to learn how to read, how to write, to learn about history, to acquire academic proficiency. We don’t send kids to school so schools can raise our kids. We send them so they can teach them.
“Raising kids is the job of parents and families, not schools. That’s what that bill does. Those who call it [‘Don’t Say Gay’ do so] because they do want to turn our schools into a place to raise children. Schools are not about raising children, they are about teaching children.”