forced to evacuate their homes. now on bbc news, it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk from capitol hill, washington with me, stephen sackur. the united states is supporting ukraine in its war against vladimir putin with weapons, with money and with sweeping sanctions on moscow. in that, president biden has the support of the us congress. but the ukraine war is stirring divisions within us politics, not least within the republican party. it s that age old clash between isolationists and interventionists. my guest today is the ukrainian born republican congresswoman, victoria spa rtz. how much is donald trump influencing this internal republican argument? congresswoman victoria spartz, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. let me start with ukraine. the white house and you guys on capitol hill have worked together to put together a massive aid package for ukraine. it s almost $40 billion. military assistance, financial assistance, humanitarian assistance as well. are you perso
An unfree thanks is that for your Company Series of a scan that takes a fat out and bites and then. Cut. To the church of the famous naturalist and explorer. To some liberation comics on the funny boards 250 miles they were embarking on a voyage of discovery. Expedition voyage on t. W. A. In Southern California the sun rises over san diego bay. Next to a major road in this parking lot 54 year old maria begins her day. St louis went to bed and. This car is her husband. This is every day. This routine about stretching my bad. Rian no longer has a place to live shes been sleeping in have done for a year now. Looks pretty nice you dont you dont feel it doesnt seem that you live here but they do i have seen people with their cars so messy and things all over the place. How can i
go to work with my life like that i mean has to have a little order you know because this is what we need to continue it is not perfect but its. The way i won and it makes me feel better. Just like maria around 30 o
the mob would, through violence, keep him in power. he is apparently the front runner, as the republican nominee. and that so many of my colleagues and trump s followers are now trying to spin that riot never happened. that it was somehow a peaceful exercise of free speech. it s absurd. all you need to do is look at what happened, the videos. but we ve got a very serious propaganda problem in this country. and i saw on another network, a former trump follower describe the trump movement as a cult. and i think there may be some truth to that. the supreme court will take a prompt colorado bellowed case on february 8th. the justices will have to decide whether the state has thlegal right to borrow the
alex. there are costs to that, and the cost is basically a delay. it takes time to set up a special council office, get a staff in place, get office space and get up to speed. the benefits you would get from the special counsel i really don t think are there now. the benefits are you have someone who is at least arguably independent so it doesn t look so much like it is a political hit job. i don t think a special council is going to get any benefit on that front now. i think no matter who is appointed trump and his followers will immediately call it a witch hunt no matter what, so i don t think you get that benefit. nor do i think there is a chance that a special council would survive a transition into a second trump presidency or the presidency of a trump follower. john durham s investigation lasted into the biden administration because the biden administration acted in good faith to let him continue his work. i just don t see that happening if we transition to a republican in 2024.
enormous influence over your party? are you happy with that? well, actually, donald trump brought a lot of good people into our party that were kind of lost i ll be honest with you because democrat party became very extreme left and kind of catered to political elites and have their own special interest group, that kind of thing they re the intellectual elite. you know, republican party was also bogged down in a lot of different drama with their own stuff. so, he brought working class people that were not part of our party. they were under reagan, then we kind of lost them and all this intellectual debate where he says, this is real people with real issue. let s care about people on the ground. so, you re still a trump supporter and follower today? i m not a trump follower, i m an independent congresswoman. donald trump just endorsed you about two weeks ago. hill endorsed me, too. i look at broad base of my party. i can unite my party and that s why i won this election.