Maxwell Frost Blasts Marjorie Taylor Greene Over Comments She Made During Oversight Hearing

5 months ago

At a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) spoke about comments made by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

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Transcript

00:00Now recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I get into it,

00:03it's interesting to hear my colleague just now talk about disavowing white supremacists,

00:08when in 2022, she spoke at an event led by white supremacists and white nationalists,

00:14Nick Fuentes, and when asked about it, doubled down on it and said,

00:18we're going to focus on people, not labels. So get out of here with that damn hypocrisy.

00:23And Dr. Snyder, I'm going to give you some time to respond. Go ahead.

00:27First of all, I'd like to thank the representative from Georgia by making clear with her comments and

00:32with her person that any discussion of political warfare has to include Russia, Ukraine, and

00:40America. She's just demonstrated that point, I think, very powerfully. On the question of Nazis,

00:46I've written two books as a historian about Nazis and the Holocaust. On the question of

00:53on the question of Ukrainian nationalism, I am the leading scholar of that subject

00:58in North America, and I've been writing about it for 20 years. If the chamber is interested

01:03in the degree of far right participation in Ukrainian politics, you can be assured

01:08that no far right party has ever crossed 3%, 3% in Ukrainian election. So of course,

01:16there are bad people in every country, but by any comparative standard is a very small phenomenon.

01:22In Russia, on the other hand, the army includes openly Nazi formations, such as Russia.

01:29The government itself is fascist in character, and it is carrying out a war, which includes

01:36deportation of children by the tens of thousands, the open intention of destroying a state,

01:41as well as mass torture. So if we're looking for fascism, and if there is anyone who is

01:46sincerely concerned about halting fascism or racism, you would wish to halt Russia.

01:52Thank you so much, Dr. Snyder. And, you know, this here was put together to talk about political

01:56warfare. And it's strange, because a lot of my Republican colleagues seem to be pointing a lot

02:01of fingers, but not at Vladimir Putin and not holding him accountable. I mean, even top,

02:06top ranking Republicans are having enough of it. Mike, Michael McCaul said, quote,

02:12I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States. Unfortunately,

02:16it's infected a good chunk of my party's base, unquote, we just heard some of that right now.

02:21Republican Michael Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, quote,

02:25we see directly coming from Russia attempts to mass communications, that there are anti-Ukraine

02:30and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor. Dr. Snyder,

02:36can you talk really quickly about some of the main narratives Russia uses when engaging in

02:42political warfare? I appreciate this question, because there's some, if we're going to talk

02:47about political warfare, we have to take into account the ways that countries cooperate.

02:52It's entirely artificial to say, here's China, here's America. That means that we leave aside

02:58Xinjiang, leave aside Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, all the places

03:04where China practices political warfare, and we leave aside Russia and Ukraine, which is where

03:08it matters the most. Political warfare is only political warfare if it passes through us. That

03:15is the intention. We've just seen an example of it passing through a person. It's only political

03:21warfare if it passes through us. What the Russians and the Chinese imitating the Russians try to do

03:27is to convince us that our system is no better than theirs, there's no point in voting, and we

03:32should support, if we support anyone at all, the person who's most likely to bring our system down.

03:37That's the point. I really appreciate you bringing up the fact that it has to pass through us,

03:40because we just heard it here from my colleague. And here's another tweet from the same colleague

03:44saying, anyone who votes to fund Ukraine is funding the most corrupt money scheme of any

03:48foreign war in our country's history. And if you look at where this is from, this is from the

03:55Strategic Culture Foundation, an online journal run by a Russian intelligence service that has

04:01been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for election interference. So we see it passing

04:07through us, and not just with the colleague that just spoke, but with many of my colleagues on the

04:10side of the aisle. And what Russian propaganda won't tell you is most of the money allocated

04:15for Ukraine is actually spent in America, 90% of it going to Americans. And so are these

04:23American companies that support Ukraine, are these allegations based on evidence, Dr. Snyder?

04:28And if not, where do these allegations against President Zelensky and his cabinet come from?

04:33First of all, US weapons are being used extremely efficiently on the Ukrainian battlefield. They're

04:38being audited in practice. Secondly, there is an American institution which does audit the way

04:43that is expended. Third of all, you're quite right. What the allocation of usually weapons

04:48that are about to be decommissioned anyway to Ukraine means is that we spend more on modern

04:52weapons inside the United States, which is why the defense industry is generally in favor of it.

04:57This trope of Ukraine being corrupt with respect to the weapons comes from a handful of Russian

05:04sources. There is no reason to think that they're fighting for their lives. They're doing very well.

05:10Yeah. Thank you so much. We've got to let that sink in. We have members of the United States

05:13Congress using Russian disinformation to discredit Ukraine and help Russia. And I yield back. Thank

05:20you.

Maxwell Frost Blasts Marjorie Taylor Greene Over Comments She Made During Oversight Hearing

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