Fox News Contributor Defends Trump’s Ukraine ‘Extortion’: ‘That’s Better Than War’

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy argued on Tuesday that even if President Donald Trump tried to extort Ukraine, it’s still better than war. McCarthy, who is a former U.S. attorney, told Fox & Friends that the extortion charge had no basis in law but even if it did, it wasn’t a problem.

Fox’s Brian Kilmeade showed clips of Democrats and media figures arguing that President Trump had committed extortion by seeking a quid pro quo for military aid Ukraine desperately needed.

“Are the Democrats doing a wise thing jamming extortion down our throats?” Kilmeade asked.

“Every time we — I think we’ve gotten to the bottom depths of nonsense in this, Brian from, a legal perspective, they sink even lower,” McCarthy said.

“Extortion is a domestic criminal law concept. It has no application to foreign relations. Right now, take Ukraine out of it. Right now, we are trying to extort the Iranians, we’re trying to squeeze them with the President’s maximum pressure policy to establish better terms and we’re looking today Israel for exactly why it’s so important to do that.”

“And everybody in the country with a brain hopes the President succeeds here. And if it’s extortion, most people would say that’s better than war.”

“And the fact of the matter is, extortion is a domestic criminal law concept where everybody is involved with the, you know, under the same rule of law, under the same legal authorities.”

“In foreign relations, what countries do to each other is basically say what do I have to do for you or to you to get to you act in a way that is consistent with what our interests are.”

Watch the video above.