Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) on "Face the Nation" | Mar. 03
Interview
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"Good morning, Margaret. Good to be here. Thanks.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Well, look, I voted for the supplemental and I voted for the supplement – the national security supplemental. And I did for a couple reasons. The first one is what you just said, Margaret, which is, this is a new era of authoritarian aggression. We've got the dictators all around the world, Xi Jinping, Putin, Iran, the ayatollahs in Iran, North Korea, they are working together. We need a strategic response to that. A very dangerous time.
Second, the Biden administration, with regard to national security, has not been serious. They cut the defense budget every year, inflation adjusted cuts. By the way, the secretary didn't mention it, they cut homeland security every year too. Those are the two areas this administration consistently cuts, weakens our homeland security, weakens our defense. But this aid should be much more in terms of how we talk about it in terms of the supplemental. It's less a foreign aid package and more a package about rebuilding our own industrial capacity to -
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To build weapons for ourselves.
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Yes.
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Well, part - part of the reason that I'm - I'm on your show today is to talk about it because 60 percent of this supplemental - and, look, it's not a perfect bill. The House can make it better - 60 percent goes into our ability to build weapons for America. Everything from nuclear subs - by the way, almost 40 percent of our attack subs are in maintenance right now. We don't have the industrial capacity to protect ourselves.
Xi Jinping is scared to death of American subs. This supplemental unlocks $6 billion for our sub capacity to build subs, $5 billion to produce 155 millimeter howitzer rounds, and everything in between, javelins, stingers, tomahawks. So, this is about our industrial capacity to protect America first and then, of course, we need to get some of these weapons to our allies who are facing existential threats, whether it's Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine. And I think when you talk about it from that perspective, it should unite Republicans, not divide them.
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Yes. Yes. Compared to the current president, 110 percent. And as your polling shows, I think the American people have real concerns where President Biden is with regard to his fitness for office, particularly his mental acuity, and relative to President Biden - or relative to former President Trump, I don't even think it's a close call when you see the two in action.
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No, but I mean, look, I mean the other thing that -
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Well, I mean, I - I - I would – again, I would go back to who is demonstrating more mental fitness to be the president. And I don't even think it's a close call between President Trump and President Biden right now.
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I did.
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I do.
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Yes.
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Well, I think one of the things - and, look, I respect General Kelly and Secretary Mattis tremendously. I think the key, though, Margaret, is to look at the record, and the record of what a Trump administration, working with Republicans, did in terms of foreign policy was dramatically stronger and focused on our allies than certainly the Obama administration, the Obama-Biden administration. And let me just give you a couple examples.
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No, I do remember why - why - why - why Mattis resigned.
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I mean, I'll give you an example. In terms of Russia, particularly – you remember President Biden - President - the - the Biden – Obama-Biden administration was providing them MREs after the invasion of Crimea.
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What did the Trump administration with Republican support do? We got them javelins.
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We significantly - significantly bolstered – significantly, American troop presence in the Baltics and in Poland, which the Obama administration refused to do. We dramatically increased American defense spending. The second term of the Obama administration, Obama-Biden, cut defense spending by 25 percent. They wrecked readiness. I'm the ranking member on the readiness subcommittee on Armed Services. Trump and the Republican Senate, we brought military readiness back and we unleashed another element of American power, and that's American energy.
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So, these are all strong elements of the Trump administration -
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Record working with Republicans that made us stronger. And right now, if you look around the world, you see chaos. And a lot of that, in my view, has been driven by the Biden administration's weakness.
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Margaret, good to be here. Thanks."
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