Fox host corrected after suggesting Russia had cause to invade Ukraine
Rachel Campos-Duffy: “Maybe all they wanted from us, and we don't know that, maybe all they wanted from NATO was for us to say Ukraine won't enter into NATO”
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From the February 27, 2022, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Weekend
WILL CAIN (CO-HOST): Joey, I want to move forward to the greater state of play, this – look when we hear Vladimir Putin begin to talk about and use the nuclear threat. Let's make no mistake about what this is and what his greater ambitions are. What you're looking at here is NATO countries. This is NATO highlighted in blue during the Cold War. What you see here are the NATO countries that joined after the fall of the Soviet Union from the 1990s on forward – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, Poland, Romania. And you can see right here lies Ukraine. You can see the strategic advantage and why it's so important to Vladimir Putin, Joey, this represents the greater state of play. This represents Putin's fears and ambitions.
JOHNNY JOEY JONES (FOX CONTRIBUTOR): Now, we talked earlier about those countries that after the fall of the USSR joined NATO, and sometimes it gets presented in a way as NATO coming, saying, come on, come be with us like they're courting or trying, NATO expansion is the term we use. I mean, if you're a small country and you just left the USSR, you're surrounded at least on two fronts by Russia, you're going to want to align with somebody. And so now we get into this, is it provoke or react, provoke or react, we talk about Russia's threatening or perhaps about to take Ukraine. So now Finland and Sweden want to join the NATO coalition. And so these are global – these are global alliances that matter long-term because the next big opportunity for something like this to happen means that if new countries are in NATO, that's new places that could draw us into war. So we have an interest as American citizens to understand what these maps mean and why it's important for – I mean, I don't know that six months ago I would have really cared if Finland joined NATO, but now I understand why it should. And that's what we're trying to do is present to our viewers the dynamics at play here. And it's important to understand as we're electing leaders when they talk about this on the stump speech, what they're talking about, and why that matters for our lives.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (CO-HOST): It's very interesting because as we look at this map, Will, I draw a different conclusion than that my friend Joey does right here. As I look at this, I see, first of all, I see a lot of Europeans who want to be defended, who don't want to pay a lot of money for it.
JONES: Fair enough.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: I mean, at some point, you know, pay up. And two, you know, I look at Finland and Sweden, I look at Ukraine. You know, we also have to look at things from the perspective of Russia. Ukraine could have been – they would prefer it remain neutral from their perspective. And maybe all they wanted from us, and we don't know that, maybe all they wanted from NATO was for us to say Ukraine won't enter into NATO and we could also provide weapons to them, which obviously we haven't done.
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CAMPOS-DUFFY: We have escalated this thing into – and we have to take responsibility on the West for our part in it.
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JENNIFER GRIFFIN (FOX CORRESPONDENT): Hi, Will, I want to follow up on what part of the discussion that I was just hearing. Rachel in terms of Russia's perspective that it is just reacting to NATO's expansion, I think from most of the US officials that I've spoken to, they do not believe that this is about NATO expansion. If you go back to the words that Putin used in July, as well as last Monday when he laid out his justification for essentially erasing the borders of Ukraine and considering it – retaking it and how he considers it part of Russia. He's talking about an 18th-century view of Russia's borders, and it has nothing to do with NATO. It's more of a tsarist view of what Russia's natural borders are, and that is why Poland, Lithuania, and others are so concerned tonight.