CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL)

Interview

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Thank you. Good morning.

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Umm, in a couple of hours I'm going to go to the St. Nicholas school here in Chicago and do a little prayer service for those students. Seventy so of those students are Ukrainian refugees.

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It's hard for me to go there and not be committed to giving their home country the weaponry it needs to win and not be in a long stalemate. I fear that we're giving them just enough to be a static war and have it protracted.

As you said in this opening, I think Putin is not going to get war weary. I'm concerned that the west might. So - and indeed what I've been saying since the first day of the war is, we need to give them whatever they need to win this war.

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Well, look, everything we give them, almost everything we're giving them now was viewed at once not necessary or escalatory.

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So, tanks are a good example. That debate over tanks was finally ended, but because of that delay, I don't think the first Abrams will get to Ukraine before 2024.

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The same thing will be said in the future for F-16s or ATACMS, the longer range weaponry. We saw HIMARS be discouraged, and then they changed the course of the war to a large extent. They pushed the Russian forces back 50 miles and their munitions. Can we continue to do that?

Putin won't change his mind on this, but what Zelenskyy said when I was in Ukraine, and what he said when he came to the capital of our country was, help us win quickly. It's important that this be ended as quickly as possible because Putin doesn't care. He seems to send his people as cannon fodder. It's a different story for the west.

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Not a mediator, but they can play an important role.

You know, which China are we talking about? The China which seems to want to normalize relationships with the U.S., where the president is meeting -- Secretary Blinken meeting with his counterpart? Or the China that sends a spy balloon down the center of the United States, and apparently making noises about sending weaponry to the Russians?

So, I think our goal needs to be diplomatically, unify the west to let China know it will be isolated if it does more. So I'm not sure they can be a credible mediator, but I do think they can play a role pressuring Putin to move toward a resolution of the conflict.

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Look, if China wants to normalize relationships, we have to threaten them with the opposite. And it, obviously, can't be unilateral. It has to be with their important trade partners. All the more reasons that trade matters, because it influences policy for countries like China. It's why we should have done Obama's trade deal in the Pacific Rim. So, it can't just be the G-7, it can't just be NATO, the EU, it has to be a worldwide effort to convince China this is a bad idea, it's against their economic and diplomatic interest.

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Look, I'm concerned about a long-term impact, that this war could go years. But right now I see a very unified, bipartisan support. You're correct, I mean, there's a resolution out there by one of the fringe, far right Republican to end support but it only has 11 co-sponsors. In the meantime, I think it's more instructive that we listen to the statement, read the statements of Chairman Turner, Chairman McCaul. They have more influence and more credibility. But given the speaker's need apparently to illicit and to give this fringe group a disproportionate influence, that part does concern me because they could be the tip of the dog's tail wagging the body politic.

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Thank you. Any time.

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