Two congressional Democrats expressed reservations on the recent decision from the Biden administration to send cluster bombs to Ukraine amid its ongoing conflict with Russia. 

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) criticized the move on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, saying the weapons “should never be used.” Similarly, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Fox News’s Shannon Bream that he has “real qualms” about the decision, which Biden said was “very difficult” for him to make. 

“Once you see what takes place, we know what takes place in terms of cluster bombs being very dangerous to civilians,” Lee told host Jake Tapper. “They don’t always immediately explode. Children can step on them. That’s a line we should not cross.”

Lee, who announced her run for the Senate in February to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein, added that she believes the Biden administration is doing a “good job” regarding the war in Ukraine, but insisted the decision to send cluster munitions is the wrong one. 

“And so I’m hoping that the administration would reconsider this because these are very dangerous bombs,” Lee said. “They’re dangerous weapons. And this is a line that I don’t believe we should cross.”

"That's crossing a line."

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) tells CNN's Jake Tapper why she does not think the US should provide cluster munitions to Ukrainian forces. @CNNSotu #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/FmC7YhPS2T

— CNN (@CNN) July 9, 2023

In an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Senator Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Servies Committee, expressed similar reservations, telling Bream that he was concerned about the administration’s decision. The Virginia Democrat pointed to a 2008 convention where 123 countries, not including the United States, Russia, or Ukraine, pledged not to use cluster bombs in conflicts, known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions. 

“There is an international convention against [the] use of these cluster munitions that dates back to 2008,” Kaine told Bream. “And the reason the prohibition was put in place, as you have described, is that these are kinds of munitions that can lead to some downstream risks to civilians.”

Kaine told Bream that he has “some real qualms” about the decision because “it could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well.” Kaine insisted the White House ensured Ukraine would not use the weapons against civilians. 

WATCH: @timkaine joins to react to the Biden Administration's decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. Tune In! #FoxNewsSunday pic.twitter.com/dPvJEVTh02

— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) July 9, 2023

Despite the criticism, John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, defended the decision Sunday, saying the White House is “mindful” of the concerns, but insisted they “provide a useful battlefield capability.” 

On Friday, the White House announced that cluster bombs would be included in an $800 million weapons package to Ukraine. This was despite American law that prohibits the use, production, and transfer of cluster munitions that have a failure rate of more than 1%, which Biden was able to bypass through a rarely-used provision of the Foreign Assistance Act, The Daily Wire previously reported.

When they explode, cluster bombs release smaller “bomblets” that spread over a wide area, though some can fail to detonate, which can be a danger for years after a war ends, Reuters notes. 

“There’s definitely a lot of tactical risks in employing these types of munitions. It limits your ability to maneuver, and limits your ability to maneuver quickly, because you have to be clearing a bunch of UXO [unexploded ordnance]” a former U.S. Army artillery officer told The Washington Post. 

North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum, who is also running for the GOP presidential nomination, said during an interview over the weekend that he would not fight culture war issues if elected president.

Burgum, who became a billionaire working in the software industry, made the remarks during an interview with NBC News’s Chuck Todd on “Meet The Press.”

On the issue of abortion, Burgum said that he would not sign a federal abortion ban “because it should be left to the states.”

Burgum said in the interview that Republican candidates should generally prioritize other issues over the culture war.

“I believe that the president of the United States has got a defined set of things they’re supposed to work on, and it’s not every culture war topic,” he said. “As president, things that you’re supposed to focus on, things like the economy, like energy policy, which is completely tied to national security, and part of national security is the border.”

When asked if he would sign any legislation on transgender issues, Burgum said that focusing on those types of policies is “part of what is going wrong now.”

“Anytime you’re the CEO, if you’re spending time on something that can be done, you know, in a sales office out on the front lines dealing with customers, you’re not doing your job,” he said. “You’ve got to be looking to the future. We need a president that’s focused on the challenges that we’re being faced as a nation, not – not a president that’s going to decide whether a book is in the right section or not in a library in a small town somewhere in America.”

“The reason why we’ve got issues with our economy, with our energy policy, with national security that are just raff, it is because we are somehow, through culturally, media, whatever, trapping the presidency or expecting them to weigh in on every single thing,” he added. “It’s not – it’s not the place that a CEO should be spending their time. It’s definitely not the place where the president should be spending their time.”

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