Chris Christie, a Republican hopeful for president, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv last week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to showcase his support for the country in its war with Russia. 

Christie said he believes the country has the resolve to win the war, and told reporters that there are “hundreds of millions of people in our country who support you.”

This is not the first time that the former New Jersey governor spoke out in favor of Ukraine and has even said the U.S. could do more to support the effort. He has called Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, a “Putin puppet.” (See “CHRIS CHRISTIE, GOP PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL, CALLS FOR UNLIMITED BUFFET OF WEAPONS FOR UKRAINE” 18 Jul 2023 and “PRESIDENTIAL REALITY SHOW: CORNEL WEST WANTS TO CHALLENGE ‘NEO FASCIST’ TRUMP, ‘MILQUETOAST NEOLIBERAL’ BIDEN” 13 Jun 2023.)

He said it is important that the U.S. continues to support Ukraine. Mike Pence, the former vice president who is also running for president, visited Kyiv in June.

Christie visited some of the war-torn cities, including Bucha, where Russia is accused of carrying out a massacre. Zelensky posted on X that it was “important that Christie began his visit to Ukraine with a visit to Bucha to see with his own eyes the threat to freedom and to everyone in the world posed by Russian aggression.”

Christie took to X to post that it was an honor to see firsthand “the heroism Ukrainians have displayed in their fight against Russia.”

He continued, “On a tour through Bucha, Ukraine, I saw the graves of Ukrainians killed and tortured by Russia. These atrocities are what America stands against. I promised their Mayor to share my experience with the American people. Leadership isn’t about standing down, it’s about standing up.”

Christie has said he favors NATO membership for Ukraine and said he would have sent Kyiv F-16s months ago, even though nobody in Ukraine can fly them. Russia sees Ukraine’s NATO membership as an existential threat that it will not accept.

Roger Stone, the former Trump strategist, also took to X to criticize Christie’s message and wrote, “New Jersey has approximately 20,000 homeless veterans but Chris Christie wants to send billions more to Ukraine.”

TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed that Trump is the heavy favorite in the Republican Party, with 54 percent of Republican voters saying that they would vote for him. (Christie is polling at a paltry 2 percent.) 

Christie will not be the next president of the U.S., but he shows the risks that come with establishment candidates that pretend that “supporting” Ukraine means sending more men to their death in war. True support would be forcing Zelensky to negotiate for a peaceful resolution so Ukrainians and the world can move on. Indeed, read today’s headline of the warmongering CNN, The Cartoon News Network, who championed the big lie that Ukraine would defeat Russia: Western allies receive increasingly ‘sobering’ updates on Ukraine’s counteroffensive: ‘This is the most difficult time of the war’

And remember the bullshit from Zelensky and American “officials” that Kyiv’s counteroffensive would drive the Russians out of Bakhmut? 

Now the game has changed, with The Wall Street Journal reporting yesterday that “Ukraine’s Bid to Retake Bakhmut Falters.” 

Blimpitis

Pictures of Christie’s visit showed how obese the governor really is, which leads to questions about his own decision-making. And, as Gerald Celente has said, anyone supporting wars go fight them along with your family and send your money or shut your mouth. 

Americans are also growing tired of supporting Kyiv, after already sending more than $75 billion in total aid to the country since the outbreak of the war.

A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that 55 percent said the U.S. should not authorize additional funding compared to 45 percent who say Congress should continue the support. CNN noted that a poll from the early days of the Russian invasion in late February 2022 found 62 percent felt the U.S. should have been doing more.