FOX "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Ukraine and Russia
Interview
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WALLACE: Amy Kellogg reporting from Moscow. Amy, thanks for that.
For more, let's bring in two Senate leaders on foreign policy. From New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Armed Services Committee. And from Illinois, Dick Durbin, the Senate's number two Democrat and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Durbin, you spoke with former Prime Minister Tymoshenko yesterday. What is your latest information? Have the protesters and the West, have they won in Ukraine?
SEN. DICK DURBIN, D-ILL.: Well, Chris, it was quite a relief yesterday. Yulia Tymoshenko has been in prison for two and a half years, but I've been working for almost two years for her release, and she was finally released by a unanimous vote in their parliament. I spoke to her just after she had addressed the crowd in the square.
She sounded tired and looked frail on the reports that we'd seen, but she told me, she assured me that she's looking for a peaceful resolution to the problems in Ukraine, to follow the constitution and the law. This whole charge of a coup by Yanukovych -- let me tell you -- it makes no sense. The coup, if any, was by the parliament that enacted the laws that made it clear that they wanted change in Ukraine.
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WALLACE: Senator Durbin, this week the president said that this is not a cold war chessboard between us and the Russians, and it's not a zero sum game, but there are a lot of people, a lot of experts, who say that that's exactly the way that Vladimir Putin is playing it and that he's taking advantage of Barack Obama on a lot of these issues.
DURBIN: You know, let me say this. Every new president is going to try to forge a new relationship with Russia and try to have a more peaceful outcome to our dealings. You expect that, whether the president is Democrat or Republican. President George W. Bush said he looked in Putin's eyes and saw a spiritual man.
So let's remember that each president tries to find a positive track, but let not forget that Vladimir Putin wasn't just a member of the KGB, he was the head of the secret police, the Soviet KGB. This is a man that we should take very seriously.
In this circumstance, I know what's going to happen next. They are going to continue, Russia and Moscow and Putin, will continue to pressure Ukraine, and the trump card they own is natural gas. Gazprom provides gas for these countries, and when Putin doesn't like their political behavior, he cuts it off or raises the price out of sight, so he has the power to pressure. We have to do everything that we can to encourage Ukraine to move forward peacefully toward democracy but understand that Putin has been a threat for many decades.
WALLACE: Well, beyond rhetoric then, Senator Durbin, what does the president, what does the European Union do if they are going to put -- if they are going to make threats, if they are going to use gas as a weapon, what does the West do because rhetoric isn't going to be enough?
DURBIN: We have to combine our efforts with the European Union to help Ukraine move forward in a peaceful Democratic way. We have to put the pressure on Putin to stop his efforts to undermine this natural evolution towards democracy, and Yanukovych has always been a puppet of Moscow, and that's why he headed to the Russian part of Ukraine and why he ultimately will leave the country, I'm guessing.
But we can -- and the West can gather with the European Union and put a force in Ukraine that moves it towards Western ideals and values.
WALLACE: When you say put a force, are you talking about boots on the ground?
DURBIN: Absolutely not. Let me underline not.
A lot of my colleagues, and I'm not pointing to my friend Kelly Ayotte in this instance, but a lot of my colleagues think any answer for a conflict in the world is for the United States to invade. I am not one of them.
I have watched two wars, thank goodness, come to an end, and I want to make certain that --
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WALLACE: So, when you say force, sir, what did you -- when you said force, what did you mean?
DURBIN: There are political forced involved in this, and that's the way we should work with them -- political and economic force moving Ukraine in the right direction towards democracy.
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WALLACE: Senator Durbin, you have proposed substantial reform of entitlements, including Social Security apart from any grand bargain. You say we need it because we're going to run out of money, but the president, as we pointed out, is taking at least one reform in the cost of living adjustment off the table, and there's another point in this whole question of spending.
The White House argues we can spend more now because according to the Congressional Budget Office deficits are going down. You can see it up on the screen in billions of dollars from $514 billion this year, deficit, to $478, but they ignore the rest of the CBO projection, which is that starting in 2016, deficits start going back up again.
Senator?
DURBIN: I can just tell you this, Chris. Since President Obama has been in office, we've reached the point we're cutting the annual deficits in half, and we're going to reduce the overall debt of the United States by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. Simpson/Bowles had a goal of $4 trillion. We can get that additional $1 trillion by passing comprehensive immigration reform, which is stalled in the House of Representatives.
What the president is saying in his budget we need to get America back to work. We need to make sure that the people who get up every day go to work and work hard can make it. They are living paycheck to paycheck. We've got to be more sensitive to the fact that more Americans working, paying taxes is going to expand our economy and reduce our deficit.
WALLACE: We're going to have to leave it there, to be continued, and the budget doesn't even come out until a week from Tuesday. Senator Durbin, Senator Ayotte, thank you both. Thanks for joining us today.
DURBIN: Thank you.
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