GOP Rep. Turner: Putin’s Nuclear Rhetoric ‘Needs to Be De-Escalated’

During this week’s Fox News Channel broadcast of “Sunday Morning Futures,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) called for the de-escalation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric about destroying the United States and Europe.

Turner called the statements “concerning” and said “the nuclear option should be taken off the table.”

“So, what we’re seeing is just increased rhetoric coming from Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, of course, his Defense Ministers referring to, you know, reducing Europe and the United States into nuclear ashes, attacking Miami or Texas,” Turner explained. “You know, these are concerning statements. The president wrote an op-ed in The New York Times — not certain that Putin reads The New York Times — but that is how the president chose to answer these and said there would be severe consequences.”

“Putin knows not to attack the United States and NATO,” he added. “He knows that our nuclear weapons, UK, France, the NATO prepositioned weapons certainly would be devastating to his nation in a response, but what he doesn’t know is that it is not going to be OK for him to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the nuclear option should be taken off the table, and this rhetoric from Putin needs to be de-escalated.”

Turner later urged President Joe Biden to ensure Putin knew the use of nuclear weapons was “not acceptable” and that the United States would respond accordingly.

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent