WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Jen Psaki accused Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley of spreading Russia propaganda Wednesday after the Republican senator called for the Biden administration to drop support for Ukraine’s potential admission into NATO.
Hawley’s letter comes amid growing tension along Ukraine’s border with Russia as the international community braces for a potential invasion of the Eastern European country, which gained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“If you are just digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points, you are not aligned with long-standing bipartisan American values, which is to stand up for the sovereignty of countries like Ukraine but others, their right to choose their own alliances and also to stand against very clearly the efforts or attempts or potential attempts by any country to invade and take territory of another country,” Psaki said Wednesday when asked to respond to Hawley’s letter, which was published by Axios.
“That applies to Senator Hawley, but it also applies to others who may be parroting the talking points of Russian propagandist leaders,” Psaki added, appearing to reference other figures on the political right, such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who have voiced an ambivalence about Russian aggression in Ukraine in recent weeks.
Hawley sent a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken questioning whether the U.S should continue to support Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO, more formally known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance formed by the U.S. and European allies during the Cold War.
President George W. Bush first expressed support for Ukraine’s admission into the organization in 2008 when Biden was in his final year in the Senate. Russia has long opposed the former Soviet Republic’s potential membership in the organization.
“The world of 2008 is gone,” Hawley said in the letter, which cited China as a growing security threat and argued U.S. resources should be shifted to the Indo-Pacific instead of maintaining a focus on Europe.
“Some argue that now is not the right time to ask hard questions about Ukraine’s prospective membership in NATO,” Hawley wrote. “But I submit that now is exactly the right time for confronting hard truths.”
His position echoes the stance of former President Donald Trump, who threatened to pull the United States out of the NATO alliance because he said the other countries in the alliance weren’t contributing enough.
Hawley responded to Psaki’s criticism on Twitter within minutes of her comments and accused the Biden administration of being soft on Russia.
“This from an Administration that has coddled Russia from Day One and now brought Europe to the brink of war — giving the Russians Nord Stream 2, refusing Ukraine military aid last year, and conducting a disastrous evacuation of Afghanistan that emboldened our enemies worldwide,” Hawley wrote.
Hawley’s letter also drew condemnation from some lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday, including Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I hate to be so personal, but Hawley is one of the worst human beings, and a self egrandizing (stet) con artist,” Kinzinger wrote.
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