Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker raised eyebrows after he harshly criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks on Ukraine last week, but a spokesman for the senator said they have spoken since and remain aligned.
“Chairman Wicker and Secretary Hegseth had a great conversation over the weekend. They remain aligned in their shared commitment to rebuild our military and reform the defense industrial base. Chairman Wicker looks forward to their continued partnership to support the peace through strength agenda of President Trump,” a spokesman for Wicker told Breitbart News on Tuesday in a statement.
Hegseth at the NATO headquarters in Brussels last Tuesday delivered a statement outlining the Trump administration’s positions on the Ukraine War in advance of the beginning of peace negotiations led by President Donald Trump.
Hegseth called on Europe to take the lead on its own security, said Ukraine membership in NATO should not be an outcome of the peace negotiations, called a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders unrealistic, said there would be no U.S. troops in Ukraine, called for a European peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, and said it should not be under a NATO umbrella that could entail U.S. military action should a NATO member be attacked.
His remarks shocked Europe for their bluntness, but also because they appeared to rule out things Ukraine had hoped to gain in a final peace agreement. Later, Hegseth said he was not taking anything off the table, and instead stating reality.
Wicker harshly criticized Hegseth’s remarks — which were coordinated with the White House.
Wicker told Politico at the Munich Security Conference that Hegseth had made a “rookie mistake” when he said a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was “unrealistic.”
“Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” he told the outlet. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”
“I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” said the senator, who is described as a “staunch Ukraine supporter.”
“Everybody knows … and people in the administration know you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to,” Wicker said, adding that he was “puzzled” and “disturbed.”
However, Trump himself two days later delivered similar remarks, saying it was not “practical” for Ukraine to join NATO and “unlikely” that Ukraine could return to its pre-2014 borders.
Wicker — a Russia hawk and supporter of more U.S. aid to Ukraine — said he opposed readmitting Russia to the G7, an idea that Trump floated, and called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal who needs to be in prison for the rest of his life.”
“There are good guys and bad guys in this war, and the Russians are the bad guys,” Wicker also said. “They invaded, contrary to almost every international law, and they should be defeated. And Ukraine is entitled to the promises that the world made to it.”
Wicker pressed the Biden administration to surge U.S. weapons to Ukraine and allow Ukraine’s forces to use them to strike inside Russia. He has also called for the U.S. to continue sending weapons to Ukraine “until there is a ceasefire.”
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