Tipsheet

'That's Just Flat Wrong': AP Reporter Confronts State Department Spokesman Over Russia-Ukraine

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  February 01, 2022 9:00 AM

Associated Press reporter Matt Lee confronted State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday about the UN Security Council’s meeting over the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

“Did the Security Council actually do anything?” Lee wondered.

While Price began to discuss how the Security Council engaged in an “exposition of the facts,” Lee interrupted. 

“Haven’t there been expositions after expositions after expositions of this going back months now? You yourself get up here every single day,” he said. “You talk about the G7, you talk about the EU, you talk about NATO, you talk about any number of international fora where this stuff has actually been agreed on.”

Price then defended the United States “engaging in robust diplomacy.”

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“If the criticism is that we are engaging too robustly in diplomacy, that we’re being too transparent, that we’re being too consistent in what we’re saying, that is criticism that we will accept if that’s a criticism you want to lodge,” he countered.

But Lee said he wasn’t being critical.

“I’m just curious as to why, when you say the world is united in opposing Russian aggression — and you say that because of what happened in the Security Council today,” he continued, referring to Monday’s meeting when the U.S. and Russia had tense exchanges and never reached a resolution. 

“Then that’s just flat wrong, because the world isn’t united,” Lee argued. 

Russia and China voted against proceeding with a discussion on the Russia-Ukraine situation, 10 member states voted to advance the discussion, while three members abstained from voting.

“There were two members of the Council, the veto-wielding members of the council that didn’t even want to have this meeting in the first place,” he continued. "So, when you talk about — when you’re talking about — what do you think? How do you think you have advanced the cause — or your cause, the cause of the United States, of Europe, of NATO, encountering Russian aggression with this meeting?”

Price instead pivoted to explaining the two no votes.