Republican Chuck Morse suggested Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives in Congress made Vladimir Putin do it.
Chuck Morse, New Hampshire's Senate president and a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, was asked Tuesday whether he agreed with the way the United States and the European Union have reacted to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He responded by blaming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her pro-climate allies in Congress.
During his appearance on a New Hampshire talk radio program, host Chris Ryan asked Morse, "Do you feel that the U.S. response and the European Union response has been appropriate? And what do you think needs to be done — if not — what needs to be done differently?"
Morse responded:
No, I don't think that's the response, and I wouldn't put boots on the ground from American soldiers. So, let me be clear, I've been talking about it for a long time now. The people that have created this New Green Deal [sic] own the responsibility for the fact that we're looking at a war right now. I was done working last night at 9 o'clock and I turned on the TV and I saw a 6-year-old Ukrainian girl dying. That shouldn't happen. Americans shouldn't even be sleeping. The fact that these guys took a vacation next week — last week — is wrong, in Washington. They should have been working on what we need to do, and that's create an energy policy that works for the United States and works for the world, quite honestly, because we'll become leaders again. They've proved we're not leaders, whether they go to Afghanistan or Russia or China. I mean, we got more problems coming, Chris, and we need to start to stand up to the root cause of it. It's their policies and the way they've handled themselves.
Morse has previously blamed the invasion on the fact that President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats had not sanctioned a Russian oil pipeline to Germany.
In a press statement on Monday, Morse demanded a massive expansion of fossil fuel drilling in the United States, urging, "We need to greatly expand our domestic production of oil and natural gas. We need to vigorously pursue an energy policy that produces the most amount of energy from the most amount of sources from here in America — the safest and soundest way to reach economic and energy independence."
He also falsely claimed in a tweet last Tuesday, "The Democrats push for the Green New Deal in every piece of legislation they possibly can."
The Green New Deal was a 2019 resolution, proposed by Ocasio-Cortez and backed by several other congressional Democrats, calling for a "10-year national mobilization effort" to address climate, equality, economic, and infrastructure issues and aimed at "removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and agricultural sectors."
Neither the Green New Deal nor the $9.5 trillion THRIVE Act it inspired has been passed into law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no mention of it in his explanation of why he has sent his military forces to invade their neighboring country.
As the United States weighs whether to reduce its fossil fuel imports from Russia as part of its sanctions against Putin's regime, it's clear that the nation is still reliant on oil and gas — part of the problem the Green New Deal's authors sought to address.
In addition to opposing the Green New Deal and other large-scale climate investments, some Republicans have taken to falsely blaming the proposal for unrelated troubles. Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed massive power outages in his state on the small amount of clean and renewable energy included in his state's power grid.
On Sunday, Stephen Moore, who served as a top economic adviser to former President Donald Trump, falsely claimed on Fox News that because the United States is importing more oil than 16 months ago, "I do believe that this situation we're in now is the direct consequence of a radical green energy policy by the Biden administration that wasn't taking into account the consequences of America giving up its energy independence."
In January, Dave Carney, Morse's general campaign strategist, posted a since-deleted comment about a story about a United Nations resolution condemning Holocaust denial, asking, "And again remind me how much money we pour down this rat hole each year? Anyone?"
Last year, national Republican leaders attempted to recruit New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to mount a 2022 challenge to first-term Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH). Sununu opted instead to seek reelection, turned off by incumbent GOP senators' obstructionist approach.
Without Sununu in the race, GOP voters will have to choose between Morse and a handful of other Republican candidates in the September primary.
A Morse campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
