Senator Eric Schmitt
speaker
478 appearances
21 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Jun 2025
Senator Eric Schmitt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
We have a lot of work to do. This is just the beginning.
Hey, Harry.
I'm doing good. Sorry about this. My flight out of Oklahoma City got or Tulsa got canceled. So I'm flying to Oklahoma City to get to get to Tulsa in time. My wife actually drive me. So I apologize about this.
Well, Charlie, you and I have had discussions about Ukraine funding, and I have been on the side of saying, you know, we have an obligation to Ukraine because of the Budapest memorandum signed in 1994. The problem is that you don't bite the hand that feeds you. And it's very frustrating to me when you start having the president, Zelensky, who has to have us, disrespect the president
and the vice president in that manner. There's no excuse for it. And at this point, it's not our issue. It is the president's position, President Trump's position to end the fighting. When that takes place, President Zelensky, who has to have us, has to listen because we're tired of funding. The taxpayers are tired of funding. It's been going on long enough. There's no end in sight.
There's no win for Ukraine here. How do you get out and stop the killing, which is what President Trump has made very clear in saying that he's not ready to negotiate? That's... At that point, President Trump did exactly what he needed to do, kick him out and say, come back when you're ready for peace.
You know, it's not for me to say that he should resign or not. I think that's for the people of Ukraine and Ukrainians to make that decision. I don't want to get the position of what happened during the Arab Spring to where Secretary Clinton was making a decision who's going to rule what country. That's been a disaster ever since.
What I want to do is keep the taxpayer dollars going to what President Trump wants to spend them for President Trump wants to end the killing. I think we have a very strong position that we should be able to recoup the money, the billions of dollars we spent by negotiating the mineral deal.
If you remember, Charlie, you and I spoke about this mineral deal because Lacey Graham, myself, Josh Gunheimer all negotiated that deal, the national security deal, back almost a year ago. that allowed us to have rights to minerals. And part of the funding that we did a year ago, we had put in there that we have first rights for refusal to the minerals.
Now, keep in mind, this is the third largest mineral deposit in the world that we know of. We think that once we get in there, It's going, because right now we know it's valued at almost $3 trillion. We think once we get in there and we actually are having U.S. mining companies using today's technology, we feel like once we get in there, it may be the world's largest deposit.
Well, right now we're getting the majority of our rare earth minerals from China. So this would be a huge advantage for us if we were able to get this mineral deal done.
At that point, it becomes a national security interest for us, which doesn't make any sense at all why Zelensky wouldn't want that deal done because if we're invested and we have a special interest in getting the minerals done, then that also becomes a national security for us and we're going to have more people in there to be able to protect Ukraine from Russia's aggression.
I think, one, he was used to dealing with the passive administration of Biden, who could remember one sentence past the next. He hadn't dealt with a strong leader like President Trump and our Vice President J.D. Vance. I think he got in there thinking he was just going to—I think he thought the media was on his side. What he didn't realize is America has changed. The narrative has changed.
People are tired of it. President Trump made it a campaign speech, literally, that he was going to end the killing in Ukraine. And the American people want to make that happen. What I don't understand is how the left is getting off on all of a sudden saying that They're for this. I think it's a losing argument on their side. And plus, Zelensky's got a bad read on politics.
Keep in mind, he went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for Harris. Vice President Vance brought that up, and that still is a sore subject.
What Zelensky should have done, which obviously he didn't read politics very well, which most Europeans don't understand American politics, what he should have done is came in with his hat in hand, thanked the president for his support, thanked the president for trying to negotiate peace,
Thank the American people for the investment and say, we would love to partner with you with the minerals that Ukraine have and let's move forward. Instead, he wanted to air it out in front of all the cameras, which is a bad move, especially with President Trump.
The path forward is that Linsky comes to President Trump, apologizes, apologizes to the American people, and says, we're going to give you a very favorable mineral deal and negotiate the best peace deal you can. On the other hand, if he thinks the European Union is the backing he needs, good on them. Let the American people pull out.
I've always said that we shouldn't be taking the lead on this to begin with. It's not in our backyard. It's Europeans' interest, not our interest. They got the gas line. Ukraine, remember, has the second largest natural gas line going into Europe. And if they want Russia to control all the gas to Europe, which means they'll control the entire economy, then that's on Europe.
So if Europe wants to take the reins here, if Europe wants to think they can fight this war without us, great. It hasn't happened the last two times they thought they could do that. We had to get involved. But if this is one they want to do, then let America take a back seat and have at
Showing 361–380 of 478 · page 19 of 24
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