Fox’s Kilmeade grills Ramaswamy over foreign policy positions

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade pressed GOP presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over his foreign policy positions Friday.

“You’re also going to be up against Ambassador Nikki Haley. And you guys could not be more disagreeable when it comes to our role in the hotspots in the world and the places that matter most,” Kilmeade told Ramaswamy in an interview on “Fox & Friends.”

Fox News then showed a clip of Haley criticizing the entrepreneur over his stance on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which Ramaswamy has suggested the U.S. should end by Ukraine ceding territory to Russia in exchange for Moscow ending its alliance with China.

“So, she went on there, Taiwan, stop Russia, there is a message to China because they’re inextricably linked,” Kilmeade said.

“So, look, I respect Ambassador Haley and her experiences, but I respectfully disagree with her. And I think the existing foreign policy establishment has gotten it wrong for so long,” Ramaswamy said. “They’re getting it wrong here too. We are driving Russia further into China’s hands.”

“But they invaded,” Kilmeade interjected. “They invaded Ukraine, Vivek. They invaded Ukraine. Just give them the 20 percent of the country?”

“Well, here is what I would say. Just like [former President Richard] Nixon did not trust [former Chinese President] Mao, we still had to pull Mao Zedong out of the hands of the USSR. I don’t trust [Russian President Vladimir] Putin any more than Putin trusts us,” Ramaswamy responded.

Kilmeade pressed the candidate on the notion that Putin could ever be trusted to divorce himself from China. “No, I will not take his word. I will make him actually abide by a agreement with the United States with hard conditions attached to it,” Ramaswamy said.

“But what I’ve said is, we can actually go the other direction, reopen economic relations with Russia, freeze the current lines of control, make a commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO,” he continued.

“So, let Russia take 20 percent of the country. They took it. They just took it,” the cable news host interjected again.  “And you said, let them have it?”

“The reality is, what do we get in return? I’m going to … I’m keeping my eyes on the prize, Brian. Here is the eye on the prize,” Ramaswamy countered. “The Russia-China alliance is the greatest threat the United States faces. There is not a single candidate in either party who has offered a coherent plan of how to disband that alliance. I have.”