Top Senate Republican Asked Point Blank About DeSantis's 'Vital Interests' Comments About Ukraine

What message does it send to Vladimir Putin when one of the leading potential contenders for the Republican presidential nomination says that this is not a vital interest for the United States in the world of Ukraine and that it's nearly a territorial dispute? Well, I mean, I think that there are lots of different opinions on U.S. involvement in Ukraine, but I think the majority opinion among Senate Republicans is that the United States has a vital national security interest there in stopping Russian aggression, and that's certainly the view I have. Senator, have you specifically and directly spoken with Leader McConnell? I have not spoken with him. I have communicated with him, but we look forward to making that happen. How do you communicate with him? Well, text. Senator, can you tell me are you concerned about regional banks losing deposits to big banks in this crisis, and should there be unlimited guarantees of bank deposits for men who use deposits and women who are being sold bigger than this? Well, I think you heard Steve Dane speak to this, but there would be a lot of concern among people in most parts of the country and certainly in rural parts of the country that have banks that operate well, that are well managed, well capitalized, although capital wasn't really the issue with SVB, it was a liquidity issue.

But I think there are people across the country who are watching this closely and are going to try to determine whether or not they're going to be on the hook for a lot of this mismanagement. But again, I would come back to the thing we want to get answered first and foremost is where did the regulators fail? Why did we not anticipate this and see this coming, knowing full well that there were lots of warning signs that should have tipped the regulators off?.

Sen. John Thune, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Ukraine