Senate

Tuberville says Ukraine can’t win war: ‘It’s a junior high team playing a college team’

by Sarah Fortinsky - 08/08/23 10:42 AM ET

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Monday he did not think Ukraine could win the war against Russia and compared Ukraine’s efforts to a junior high team trying to defeat a college team in a hypothetical sports match.

In an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Monday night, Tuberville touted his record voting against funding for Ukraine and said that, while he supported the country’s efforts over Russia, he thought Ukraine was outmatched and that no amount of funding would change that.

“I haven’t voted for a dime to send Ukraine,” Tuberville told Ingraham. “I’m for Ukraine. Russia should have never done this. I was in Ukraine three months with President [Volodymyr] Zelensky before this started. They were already fighting to that point.”

“But, at the end of the day, it’s a junior high team playing a college team,” he continued. “They can’t win. We can throw all the money we want to, but unless we send NATO and our troops over, which we’re not going to do, if I have got anything to do with it, then there’s no chance.”

Tuberville’s comments come amid increasing concern that support for Ukraine might be waning among American voters and among Republicans in Congress.

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The Alabama senator offered his comments in response to a recent CNN poll showing that 55 percent of Americans thought Congress should not authorize additional funding for Ukraine.

Other polls, however, have struck a different note. In late June, a Reuters/Ipsos survey found an uptick in the percentage of Americans who supported arming Ukraine, from 48 percent in May to 65 percent in June.

President Biden has remained steadfast in his support for Ukraine, and the United States has authorized tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine since the war began in 2022.

Tags Joe Biden Russia-Ukraine war Tommy Tuberville Ukraine aid Volodymyr Zelensky