Nikki Haley lobbies for continued Ukraine spending: ‘a win for Ukraine is a win for all of us’

Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations, claimed to CNN host Jake Tapper that Ukraine winning the ongoing battle against Russia "is in the best interest of US national security" and that the United States "should not remain neutral."

She then slammed fellow Republican presidential candidates, GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for their views on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Former President Trump said that he would like to see the war end and would conduct negotiations between the two countries, while DeSantis called it a "territorial dispute" and criticized the United States' involvement.

"You can't be trustful of a regime that goes in and tries to take away people's freedoms. What we need to understand is that Ukraine has the ability to win, but we have to think bigger than that," Haley said. "And for them to sit there and say that this is a territorial dispute, that's just not the case. To say that we should stay neutral is not in the best interest of America."

"It's in the best interest of our national security for Ukraine to win," she asserted. "We have to see this through. We have to finish it."

Haley explained that the United States helping allied countries sends a clear message to "terrorists groups," such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, that are looking to start wars. She says that equipping allied countries with military equipment and ammunition acts as the best deterrent for potential future wars.

"What we have to understand is a win for Ukraine is a win for all of us because terrorists tell us exactly what they're going to do," Haley said on stage.

"China said they were going to take Hong Kong, they did it. Russia said they were going to invade Ukraine, we watched that happen. China says Taiwan's next, we better believe them. Russia said Poland and the Baltics are next. If that happens, we're looking at a world war," Haley said.

"And so the way you prevent wars, not that we give cash to Ukraine, not that we put troops on the ground, but that we get with our allies, and we make sure that we give them the equipment and the ammunition to win because when Ukraine wins, that sends a message to China with Taiwan. It sends a message to Iran that wants to build a bomb. It sends a message to North Korea testing ballistic missiles. And it sends a message to Russia that it's over," she said.

The former South Carolina governor claimed that the war would be over if Russia concedes, but if Ukraine were to pull out, "we're all looking at a world war."