As NATO wrapped up its latest summit in The Hague, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) said he is not in favor of Ukraine joining the organization.
“I think that an attempt to do that would essentially make it almost 100% certain that you wouldn’t be able to find a peaceful resolution to the war,” McCormick said on Wednesday evening, during a telephone town hall meeting.
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Ukraine joining NATO has been viewed as a red line for Russia, McCormick said. But, he added that he views Russia as the aggressor in the ongoing war. Multiple presidents have previously expressed support for Ukraine joining NATO including presidents George W. Bush and Joe Biden.
However, President Donald Trump said in February that it is not practical.
More than 150,000 Ukrainians and Ukrainian Americans live in Pennsylvania, making the Keystone State home to the second largest population in the country.
McCormick, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, also suggested that Russia may be facing more sanctions from the U.S. in the near future.
“They haven’t been willing to come to the table,” McCormick said. “They keep playing games. They seem to suggest they’ll do a deal, and then they don’t.”
“I’ve signed on(to) a piece of legislation in the Senate that I suspect we’ll introduce, if there’s not progress in the next week or two, with a number of other senators, to put sanctions back on Russia,” he added. “We’ve got to have an end to the fighting, and part of that is Russia, I think, acting in a more responsible way about a peace agreement.”
The state’s junior senator also said he supports Trump’s outlined path in reaching an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Part of that, he noted, is Europe establishing a security arrangement for Ukraine to ensure that they will be protected against future aggression.
He celebrated NATO’s decision on Wednesday to invest 5% in defense spending, which is an increase from previous years.
“We should probably increase the funding for NIH”
Referring to Pennsylvania as one of the life sciences capitals of the world, McCormick said the country “should probably increase the funding for the National Institutes of Health, not lessen it” as cuts potentially loom via the Department of Government Efficiency.
“I don’t agree with what the policy has been on this, and I’ve expressed that to Secretary (Robert F.) Kennedy (Jr.) and others,” McCormick said.
He was responding to a constituent’s question who was concerned about a $5 million grant, aimed to pursue a cure for muscular dystrophy, potentially being pulled.
In February, the Muscular Dystrophy Association released a statement condemning the proposal to limit indirect costs to 15% of all grants.
“The neuromuscular disease community depends on a well-funded biomedical research ecosystem to discover breakthrough treatments and potential cures,” Donald S. Wood, PhD, President and CEO of Muscular Dystrophy Association, and Sharon Hesterlee, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of MDA said. “This is why MDA strongly condemns the National Institutes of Health’s policy guidance that all indirect costs will be capped at 15% in all grants. This arbitrary decision will prove catastrophic to neuromuscular disease research, and we call for NIH to immediately reverse this decision.”
McCormick said Pennsylvania is one of the biggest recipients of NIH funding in the nation, getting more than $1 billion a year that goes towards the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Penn State Health, and other large hospitals, universities and research labs.
“It’s a huge issue in Pennsylvania,” he said.
McCormick said he doesn’t believe that cuts should be made to the grants that are in midstream where progress has been made.
“In many cases, people’s lives are dependent on this breakthrough kind of research,” he said. “I don’t think it makes sense to cut grants in midstream, even if the overhead numbers look too high.”
However, McCormick said these universities need to have more scrutiny. He thinks there should be a “very organized approach” to reviewing how NIH grants are given to ensure taxpayers money is being spent on “real good science research, which in most cases it is.”
McCormick said he had a call with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya last week and said they “see a lot of common ground on this” and is attempting to have him come to Pennsylvania for a visit.
“I’m wrestling with it myself,” McCormick says about AI regulations in BBB
A provision in the reconciliation bill, dubbed by Trump as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” would prohibit states from regulating artificial intelligence (AI) for the next 10 years.
“I’m not sure where the Senate version is going to land,” McCormick said. “I think this is going to be something that we’re going to be wrestling with in the Congress for the foreseeable future, because AI is changing so quickly that we’re not keeping up with it.”
McCormick said he’s sympathetic to the provision because some states put what he called, “extreme regulations in place.”
“So, the problem with letting states independently regulate AI is that you get this mishmash of regulations that can be very restrictive to innovation and very restrictive to successful business,” McCormick said. “My view on the AI arms race is that China is our biggest competitor, and the key to winning that battle is not trying to restrict AI so much as to win the innovation game.”
However, McCormick said the work needs to provide, “clear ethical boundaries and ethical frameworks and regulation.”
“I think the biggest fear is that we’re not going to innovate enough, and if we let states start to regulate AI, we’re going to really get in the way of innovation,” he said.
However, he said in some specific areas, it becomes “really problematic.” He cited the music industry around Nashville, Tennessee.
“Country music singers are super worried about AI being used to steal their content: artists, musicians, actors, are worried about AI undermining them,” McCormick said. “So, Tennessee might want to put in specific regulation to protect their music industry.”
“So, there’s a tension here on recognizing that you need specific protections for certain types of industries, and to ensure that AI doesn’t result in kind of mass stealing of intellectual property and so forth,” he added.
McCormick said he’s trying to spend a lot of time understanding AI and admitted most members of Congress probably don’t even understand it, as it is evolving rapidly.
While the Republican was still weighing his options on that provision, he defended other parts of the reconciliation bill, including extending the Trump tax cuts put in place during the president’s previous term, and the spending levels for border security, defense, Medicaid, and SNAP.
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.