ICYMI: Chairman Emeritus McCaul on ABC's "This Week"
AUSTIN, Texas – U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) — chairman emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees — joined Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" to discuss the latest on the Trump administration's strikes in the Caribbean and the latest on the efforts to secure peace in Ukraine.
Excerpts from the interview:
On Democrat lawmakers suggesting President Trump's Caribbean strikes are illegal: “These orders that they’re talking about, in my judgment, are not illegal orders to follow. They are orders based upon Article II, self-defense, of the Constitution, to stop a threat — in this case the threat of drugs coming into your country and killing Americans. ...
“There are no illegal orders to follow here. If an invasion does take place in, you know, down in Venezuela against Maduro ... that would trigger a War Powers Act response by Congress. We would have 60 days, if the conflict is still ongoing, to determine whether a declaration of war is warranted or an authorized use of military force.”
On the current peace plan for Ukraine: “Let me say first, if Biden hadn't let Afghanistan fall, we probably wouldn't have been in this position in the first place [due to] the mishandling of the weapons going into Ukraine, as I talked about for the entirety of the Biden administration.
"Having said all that ... we did have a conversation with the White House, the vice president, [and] Secretary of State Rubio last night. ... Rubio did say on the call that this is a United States document with input from Ukraine and from Russia. About 80% of this deal, I think, they're going to find agreement with as they go to Geneva. The problem is going to be the 20% of really tough items to negotiate."
On the importance of ongoing negotiations: "I think there's flexibility. I do know that Rubio said, within the next 72 hours we will know a great deal about whether this goes forward or not. I think Zelensky has stated ... that he sees this as a vision, but not a done deal.
"So it should not be ‘take it or leave it.’ On all parties’ sides, except the Russians [whom] I haven't talked to ... this is an ongoing negotiation process. So, they're really getting it started. The way the White House described it last night was, we had to start putting this pen to paper so we could get something accomplished. ...
"It seems to me, Martha, that Zelensky is always willing to make concessions to get to an agreement, to get to yes, while Putin is the one that's never willing to make concessions, even to this day. And so we'll see where he comes in. I don't know if he will accept this plan."
On the necessity for security guarantees for Ukraine: "In [the] 1994 Budapest [Agreements], Ukraine gave up all its nuclear weapons in exchange for what? For nothing. And then Russia invaded. There was no security agreement. There were just simply assurances given by Bill Clinton. That cannot happen again. ... [T]his is where Keith Kellogg did get involved to write a security agreement, which I hope is more ironclad, like an Article 5-like agreement. For without that, I would not advise Ukraine to sign this. They can't sign an agreement like the Budapest [agreement] and then allow Russia to invade again."
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