WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today joined “CNN Newsroom” with national security correspondent Jim Sciutto to discuss the latest news coming out of Ukraine, the importance of arming Taiwan, and soaring inflation made worse by the Biden Administration’s economic policies.

Wicker made clear that upcoming opportunities to arm Ukraine must proceed independently from COVID aid and immigration reform. Increased military aid, Wicker said, should be taken up by the Senate in full next week.

“Adding border type issues, COVID type issues is a good way to slow it down,” Wicker said. “On a bipartisan basis, we need to get these $33 billion dollars. We need to vet it and make sure it’s all good spending and all good aid for our friends in Ukraine, but we need to do it quickly. I’d like to see it done next week, and the way to do that is to leave unrelated issues for another day.”

Citing a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed authored by Senator Wicker and former Senator Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Sciutto asked Wicker if the United States should accelerate its aid to the country. Wicker said that arming Taiwan rapidly could prove a deterrent to Chinese aggression.

“With a country like China, sanctions aren’t going to work very well. But with just one more percent of gross domestic product in Taiwan, we can sell them the weapons they need to basically discourage a Chinese invasion.” Wicker said. “…What we ought to be doing immediately is helping [Taiwan] get ready for an attack, an invasion, which we hope will never happen because Taiwan is strong enough to defend itself.”

The Mississippi senator also discussed the state of the American economy, laying responsibility for soaring inflation at the feet of the Biden Administration for waging a “war on domestic energy” and ramming through trillions in unnecessary spending. Wicker added that President Biden’s anti-energy agenda has hobbled the economy as it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

“The first month of the Biden administration, this country was poised to come out of the pandemic, this economy was ready to roar,” Wicker said. “And what did Biden and the Democrats do? They poured $1.9 trillion dollars onto an already heated economy. Everyone – Democrat and Republican – that watched history could predict that this would give us huge inflation.”