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(WASHINGTON) — Several top GOP senators are pushing back on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ position that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a vital U.S. national interest.

DeSantis’ statement terming the war a “territorial dispute” sparked backlash from members of his own party, including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., early Trump backer Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas, told ABC News that he doesn’t understand why DeSantis — a veteran himself — would be against shoring up support for Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.

“I was kind of surprised. I mean, Governor DeSantis is a veteran. He’s a smart guy. I think he’s been a very good governor. And I just I don’t understand him saying that Ukraine isn’t important to the United States,” Cornyn, who called the issue “absolutely important,” said.

“It raises questions,” Cornyn said when asked whether DeSantis’ remarks gave him concern about the Republican governor’s understanding of the issue.

When asked whether questions about the size and scope of American aid to Ukraine could become a leading GOP narrative on the 2024 campaign trial, Tillis said he thinks “people need to open the aperture.”

“Take a look at do you really want Russia to to own the breadbasket of Europe, and that’s Ukraine, affecting food supplies? People are forgetting what we’ve had to do to get food into North Africa because of the conflict. Do you really want that under Russian control?” he said.

Rubio, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the war in Ukraine is “not a territorial dispute in the sense that any more than it would be a territorial dispute if the United States decided that it wanted to invade Canada or take over the Bahamas.”

“I don’t know what he’s trying to do or what the goal is,” Rubio continued in a conversation with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt regarding DeSantis’ comments. “Obviously, he doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor.”

Rubio, the senior senator from DeSantis’ state, also noted the importance of the conflict as a U.S. national security concern.

“It’s not the number one national security interest the United States has, but it’s an important one. And there are things we can do and should do to further that interest by helping them. It’s not an unlimited interest,” he added.

Graham, without mentioning DeSantis by name, seemed to criticize him as “missing a lot” regarding the international conflict.

“To those who believe that Russia’s unprovoked and barbaric invasion of Ukraine is not a priority for the United States – you are missing a lot.” Graham wrote in a Twitter thread posted on Tuesday.

But DeSantis’ stance, especially his contention that “our citizens are also entitled to know how the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being utilized in Ukraine,” has several supporters within his party. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar have expressed skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine, and they have been on the record voting against spending packages to aid Ukrainians in the conflict.

GOP Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus who last May condemned billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine as “indefensible,” took the step of endorsing DeSantis for president on Wednesday, nodding to the governor’s stance on Ukraine in his statement of support.

“Perhaps most of all Governor DeSantis makes clear he would lead our nation as commander in chief with the kind of resolve and sober strength that produces peace through strength. A veteran himself, he recognizes that a military is best when it is strong, non-politcally correct and lethal– while being sparingly but decisively used and not mired in endless, protracted military engagements all around the globe,” Roy wrote in a statement.

The Republican governor, widely viewed as a top contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, dinged the Biden administration for “virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability.”

“The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders,” DeSantis said in his response to a questionnaire from Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson, which Carlson shared Monday.

“F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable,” he continued.

Former President Donald Trump adopted a similar stance in his response to Carlson’s questionnaire.

“Is opposing Russia in Ukraine a vital American national strategic interest?” Trump asked.

The two probable GOP frontrunners’ stance on Ukraine is directly at odds with other Republican candidates and potential 2024 hopefuls, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has declared her candidacy. Both have publicly said that supporting Ukraine is of vital interest to the U.S.

ABC News’ Trish Turner, Brittany Shepherd and Tal Axelrod contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Stormy Daniels met with prosecutors Wednesday at the request of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, her attorney said in a tweet, as the office continues its ongoing criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s role in a hush money payment made to Daniels near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign.

“Stormy responded to questions and has agreed to make herself available as a witness, or for further inquiry if needed,” her attorney, Clark Brewster, wrote in the tweet.

Daniels met with prosecutors over Zoom, said a source familiar with the investigation.

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, paid $130,000 to Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign to allegedly keep her quiet about an affair she claimed to have had with Trump. The former president has denied the affair and his attorneys have framed the funds as an extortion payment.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is mulling whether to charge Trump with falsifying business records, after the Trump Organization allegedly reimbursed Cohen for the payment then logged the reimbursement as a legal expense, sources have told ABC News.

“Thank you to my amazing attorney … for helping me in our continuing fight for truth and justice,” Daniels wrote in a tweet Wednesday afternoon.

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(PHARR, Texas) — Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told lawmakers on Wednesday that parts of the southern border are in “crisis” and that U.S. authorities do not have “operational control” despite recent declines from the historically high levels of illegal migration seen in the past year.

“The migration flow represents challenges and — in some areas — a crisis situation,” Ortiz said, citing the more than 900,000 unauthorized migrant encounters so far this budget year.

Ortiz painted a complex and dynamic picture of the southern border in testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, noting that Border Patrol apprehensions over the past two months have “declined significantly.” In January, apprehensions hit the lowest point since the early weeks of the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

“Challenges and crisis are nothing new for the Border Patrol, and I’m incredibly proud of our personnel as well as our many partners,” Ortiz said.

House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., asked Ortiz point-blank if the U.S. is currently meeting the definition of “operational control” at the southern border, as defined by federal law.

“No, sir,” Ortiz responded.

However, by that measure, no administration in U.S. history has ever achieved such control. Title 8 of the U.S. Code defines operational control as the “prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States,” a task complicated by the vast size and geographic variety of the southwest.

The Border Patrol itself has defined operational control differently than under Title 8. Instead of setting the bar at sealing the border between official crossing points, the agency has defined control as its ability to respond to specific and immediate threats.

Still, Ortiz told the House committee, there were problems that Congress could help solve.

“Today’s border environment requires a whole-of-government solution to include international engagements, resourcing and consequences which could be in the form of legislative or policy adjustments,” Ortiz said. “And that is where I asked for your help. We need more options.”

In a statement on Wednesday, White House spokesperson Ian Sams accused Republicans of “playing partisan games at the border,” noting their lack of support for President Joe Biden’s border security funding proposals.

“Perhaps House Republicans could take the time at this hearing to look the Chief of the Border Patrol in the eye and honestly explain to him why they want to slash the funding needed to combat fentanyl trafficking, stop unlawful border crossings, and conduct other important law enforcement efforts at the border,” Sams said.

While conservatives in Congress have approved funds to the border multiple times under Biden, they have since said more money isn’t appropriate without different border policies. Others, like Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, have called Biden’s proposed border funding “more talk with no action” because it doesn’t fix issues with border agent staffing and more.

Republican House committee members held Wednesday’s hearing at South Texas College near the border in Pharr, Texas. Green opened the hearing by admonishing Democrats for not attending.

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, pulled out of the hearing over what he said were Republican attempts to “score political points.”

“After careful consideration, Committee Democrats have decided not to participate in the Republicans’ field hearing this week,” Thompson said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it has become clear that Republicans planned to politicize this event from the start, breaking with the Committee’s proud history of bipartisanship.”

Thompson said Democrats plan to visit the southern border as soon as this week.

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(WASHINGTON) — The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is putting deregulatory reforms implemented under former President Donald Trump back in the spotlight.

The abrupt implosion of the country’s 16th-largest bank last week resulted in swift finger-pointing in Washington.

President Joe Biden and many progressive Democrats have blamed, in part, a 2018 law that rolled back some of the Dodd-Frank Act — a series of federal regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Republicans, on the other hand, are decrying so-called “woke” practices at the bank as well as government spending and inflation as the culprits.

Though there’s more to learn about the bank’s downfall, several experts told ABC News it was a failure of regulation and supervision.

“The Federal Reserve completely missed major classic red flags at Silicon Valley Bank,” said Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Here’s what you need to know as the political fallout continues.

What is the Dodd-Frank Act?

In response to the worst recession since the Great Depression, Congress passed a sprawling law in 2010 overhauling federal financial regulation.

One of its major provisions was designating any bank with more than $50 billion in assets a “systemically important” financial institution — or “too big to fail” — and thus subject to enhanced prudential standards, such as “stress tests” and certain capital planning and liquidity requirements.

“Dodd-Frank massively empowered the Federal Reserve to more forcefully regulate banks, including those where it wasn’t the direct bank regulator,” Klein said.

What did Trump do?

The Dodd-Frank Act was met with animosity from the industry, which argued the regulations were burdensome and only necessary for the largest banks. Silicon Valley Bank’s CEO Gregory Becker was among those calling for lighter regulations.

After years of political pressure, Congress passed a law that rolled back some of those rules for smaller and mid-tier banks.

Among the biggest changes was raising the asset threshold for “systemically important” institutions from $50 billion to $250 billion. Under the law, the Federal Reserve still had the right to apply the Dodd-Frank regulations to banks with at least $100 billion in assets if they chose to do so.

Trump signed it into law in May 2018, calling it “big deal for our country.” The push to alter Dodd-Frank split the Democratic Party, and ultimately more than a dozen Senate Democrats joined Republicans to support the deregulations.

“It reduced stress testing, it reduced collateral calculations, it reduced the supervisory stress test and it enabled them not to publicly conduct or report their own company-run stress tests,” Dennis Kelleher, the president & CEO of the nonprofit Better Markets, said of the 2018 law. “It blew a hole in several of the key financial stability protection rules.”

Debate rages over 2018 law amid SVB’s collapse

Critics, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, have said the law’s softening of regulations contributed to Silicon Valley Bank’s demise.

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act and a board member of the recently shutdown Signature Bank, told Bloomberg he didn’t think the 2018 changes had an impact. Trump, too, defended it, claiming banks were getting “eaten alive” by regulations.

And some Democrats who backed the law are defending it. Sen. Mark Warner told “This Week” on Sunday he thought it “put in place an appropriate level of regulation on mid-sized banks.” Sen. Tim Kaine said regional and community banks “really needed” the relief at the time, and that “solutions should wait until there’s an analysis of causes.”

Amid the debate, experts told ABC News stress tests and other financial-safety requirements may have caught problems at the institution earlier but there were warning signs Federal Reserve supervisors should’ve seen regardless.

“This was a failure of supervision … the red flags that were going on at SVB, you didn’t need enhanced prudential standards to catch that,” Klein said.

Those concerns included the bank’s explosive asset growth, its reliance on uninsured deposits and the impact of high interest rates on its long-term bonds.

“Those deregulatory reforms may well have contributed to laxer rather than stricter oversight,” Lawrence Baxter, a law professor at Duke University and former executive at Wachovia, said of the 2018 law. “Having said that, I don’t think the regulators are entirely off the hook because they still have power to take action when they observe rapid deterioration. And we’ll have to find out why they didn’t.”

What’s next?

Biden on Monday specifically cited the Trump-era rollbacks as he addressed the banking system, vowing to work for more regulation.

“I’m going to ask Congress and the banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely that this kind of bank failure will happen again and to protect American jobs and small businesses,” the president said.

Warren and Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., have already unveiled legislation to repeal the 2018 rollbacks.

Republicans, so far, have expressed no interest in revisiting the law. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said he has “confidence in our financial regulators and the protections already in place to ensure the safety and soundness of our financial system.” Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, told Fox News that “nothing in the Dodd-Frank reforms we put together did anything with regard to this crisis.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, two people familiar with the situation confirmed to ABC News. The Federal Reserve Board is also reviewing the supervision and regulation of the bank, which is set to be released by May 1.

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