Former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting aggressively during the Biden-era because the Russians do not view Biden as credible.
When asked if the situation with Russia amassing troops near Ukraine could be brought back from the brink, Pompeo said, “it’s awful late.”
“The real hard work of deterrence would have happened a long time ago, a year ago, when President Putin demanded that we give him a new START treaty extension, we gave it to him for nothing,” he said. “When they had Russian cyberattacks and they shut down the Colonial Pipeline, we told them you can only attack certain sectors, but 16 are off-limits. When we left Afghanistan in the way we did — those were the places where the administration had a chance to establish deterrence.”
“Putin saw this and so these tactical things today about whether our families will stay in Ukraine, we’ve got to the right thing and take care of our families,” he continued. “But these tactical things aren’t what causes Vladimir Putin to recalculate his cost-benefit analysis. I think they don’t see President Biden as credible. I think they see all this talking, these pieces of paper being exchanged just not credible.”
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TRANSCRIPT:
SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Lucas Tomlinson live from the White House — Lucas, thank you.
Joining us now, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, now a FOX News contributor.
Welcome back to “FOX News Sunday”.
MIKE POMPEO, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Good morning. It’s great to be with you.
BREAM: All right. Let’s start with the U.K. and it’s telling us that it’s discovered a plot that Russia is trying to put a Russian-backed or Russian- sympathetic individual as the new leader in Kyiv.
The NSA here on the U.S., stateside, says this: This kind of plotting is deeply concerning. The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future. We stand with our democratically elected partners in Ukraine, a number of Russian officials calling this misinformation.
Their embassy in the U.K. saying this:..
