Sen. Lindsey Graham argued in defense of further funding for Ukraine during his appearance on Face the Nation this Sunday. Some of Graham’s remarks were directed at Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who criticized the U.S. government’s financial support of Ukraine and described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator” on Steve Bannon’s podcast, Bannons War Room. Consequently, Graham compared the Alabama senator to Americans who sided with Adolf Hitler before the U.S.’s entrance into World War II. The clash between the two Republican senators represents a broader foreign policy divide in the party that has deepened since the election of President Donald Trump in 2016. Many of the newer MAGA Republicans, like Sen. Tuberville, are either self-described isolationists or generally skeptical of U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts. The war in Ukraine has done much to highlight this divide among Republicans. “Senator Tuberville’s analysis,” Graham said, “really misses what Putin’s all about — he’s an outlier, I think, in the Republican party.” To stress the point even further, Graham alluded to the 80th anniversary celebration of D-Day, which he described as a “failure” because the U.S. had not intervened sooner. He went on to say that “these are the most dangerous times since the ’30s” and described Tuberville’s position as “what we did in the ’30s, [and] that didn’t work out.” Furthermore, in justifying the continuation of financial support for Ukraine, Graham said that Ukraine “could be the richest country in all of Europe,” referring to the country’s resources, and critical minerals in particular. “I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin,” he said, adding, “if we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of.” This statement was perceived by critics as being revelatory of an exploitative foreign policy agenda — one that is primarily driven by market expansion and economic growth, often at the cost of the military casualties caused or enabled by U.S. intervention. Postliberal scholar and author Rod Dreher, for instance, reposted a comment on X that said: “Lindsey Graham has just confirmed that they are not sacrificing the Ukrainian people for ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy,’ but for Ukraine’s minerals, which are worth trillions of dollars, and the West wants them.” Dreher’s own comment was: “WOW! There it is…this is about minerals.” Steve Bannon, who has been a consistent critic of “neoconservative” foreign policy and was the one to ask Tuberville about Ukraine in the first place, also responded to Graham’s comments while interviewing Strategic Intelligence editor James Rickards yesterday. He began by asking rhetorically: “Is [Tuberville’s view] an outlier of the Republican party? No, it’s pure MAGA. No more money for Ukraine.” He then continued: “it may be outside of the neoliberal neocons,” but “this is what MAGA thinks, this is what ‘America First’ thinks.” The post Sen. Graham Sparks Backlash from Conservatives After Saying Ukraine ‘Can Become the Best Business Partner’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.