Representative Brian Mast (R-FL) appeared on “Mornings with Maria” and discussed two recent developments on Capitol Hill. These two developments include the $95 billion defense package sent to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Indo-Pacific and the potential ban of the Chinese-owned social media platform, TikTok.
The Florida congressmen began by calling out the European Union for allegedly not holding their end of the bargain regarding Ukraine, especially with the war against Russia happening “in their backyard.”
European Union countries, which have a combined GDP of $20 TRILLION, are not spending anywhere as close as America on Ukraine.
They’re spreading their money out over multiple years for a war that’s happening in their backyard. Why is that? pic.twitter.com/3m09Mq4srO
— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) April 23, 2024
“Essentially Europe – EU – Is looking at America as a bank, except we’re borrowing at maybe 3%, we’re giving it away, not even lending it out. We’re giving it away at 0%. We have to pay the bill on it later in the day,” said Rep. Mast. “And probably the most upsetting part about this to most Republicans was this: We’re being told it’s urgent. ‘[Ukraine doesn’t] have another week. They don’t have another month. We have to get this done immediately.’ Well, if you look at what Europe is doing, their commitment has been less, we’ve given out $113 billion, they’ve given less than 100 billion. And those are just commitments by Europe. They haven’t even allocated all of that.”
He continued by reinforcing the idea that based on the response of the EU, funding for Ukraine does not appear all that urgent.
“Right now, they’re looking for us to infuse $60 billion from the United States of America immediately, while Europe’s commitment right now is $50 billion over the course of the next three years. That doesn’t sound like urgent and it’s in their backyard and that’s one of the big things that upsets us,” said Rep. Mast.
Furthermore, the Florida congressman spoke on the possibility of the social media giant TikTok getting banned in the United States.
“When you look at the TikTok portion of it, I always tell people this, we’re not looking to ban TikTok, we’re looking to go out there and say, listen, if you’re owned by a Chinese company that is actively trying to engage in espionage against the American people, then we’re going to ask that you divest from China. We’re not going to allow the act of espionage against the American people. That’s basic level of good governance.”
Congressman Mast represents Florida’s 21st District.
