'Rookie mistake': GOP senator says 'fool' could have written Trump defense secretary’s NATO comments

14 February

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) is among the Republicans who voted to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; the only Republicans who joined Senate Democrats in voting against Hegseth's confirmation were Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski.

But Wicker is being mildly critical of Hegseth's comments about war-torn Ukraine during the NATO Summit in Europe.

The defense secretary and former Fox News host declared that membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is off the table for Ukraine, and Hegseth said that a return to Ukraine's pre-war borders is "unrealistic."

Interviewed at the Munich Security Conference, Wicker told Politico, "Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn't my choice for the job. But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels…. I don't know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool."

Former Fox News host Carlson is an unapologetic defender of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Wicker's criticism of Hegseth is gentle compared to the scathing criticism he is getting from Democrats and Never Trump conservatives, but the Mississippi Republicans clearly believes that President Donald Trump's defense secretary didn't handle himself well during the NATO Summit.

Wicker told Politico, "I prefer we didn't give away negotiating positions before we actually get started talking about the end of the Russia-Ukraine War.”

Read Politico's full article at this link.

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