Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said over the weekend that Russian President Vladimir Putin would pay a “heavy price” for allegedly murdering Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was known for leading anti-corruption efforts in the country.
“If you’re Putin, I want you to know we’re not going to pull the plug on Ukraine,” Graham said. “We’re going to come after you. We’re going to make your country a state sponsor of terrorism, you’re gonna pay a heavy price for murdering this brave man.”
Graham made the remarks during a Sunday CBS News interview with Robert Costa on “Face The Nation” when asked about support for another bipartisan bill that lawmakers are working on to address immigration and provide foreign aid to several countries, including Ukraine.
“I spoke to President Trump earlier in the week about making the aid to Ukraine a loan. This was his idea, not mine,” Graham said. “You know, we did lend-lease to Britain. We’re $34 trillion in debt. Ukraine has minerals, have a lot of resources. Israel has a strong economy. They’d been hurt badly by October the 7th. Taiwan is a pretty rich nation. Why don’t we do this, make a favorable loan to all three of these allies? Let them pay us back when they can, if they can, because we’re 34 trillion in debt. That’s the Trump idea.”
“If you embrace that, I think you’ll get a lot of votes in the House and the Senate,” he continued. “President Trump says let’s wait on the border. With all due respect, we cannot wait. It’s a national security nightmare. A 2,000% increase in people on the terrorist watch list coming across the border. In two years, 5 billion people could be killed by the amount of fentanyl coming across our southern border. The largest loss of life of young people in America is fentanyl poisoning coming across the southern border. So I don’t want to wait, I want to act now on the border. I want to turn the aid package into a loan. That makes perfect sense to me. And I think the bipartisan Problem Solvers group has an idea that will sell.”
WATCH:
