Husband. Father. Hokie. Foreign Policy. Reaganite. Ephesians 2:8-9
Blacksburg, VA
Joined December 2015
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Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
We were called RINOs, traitors, who had TDS - when in fact, we were the ones actually trying to save the Republican Party, but you wouldn’t listen:
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
Mr. Vice-President,
Please allow me to present a different perspective.
The problem was not the Iran War. It was the cease fire.
If you start a war, you need to win it and finish it – otherwise don’t start it.
This war should have been over six months ago, with the Strait of Hormuz wide open and oil flowing. The second and third tiers of Iranian leadership should have been destroyed, and we should have supported the pro-western forces who could have taken leadership. We stood on the brink of a new, more peaceful Middle East - and then we blinked. We had a chance not only to deny Iran nuclear weapons, but to get rid of the world’s biggest supporter of terrorism.
Instead, we had a cease fire, which was followed by months of will we or won’t we finish the job. Every day was a different message. There still is. Is the war over? Is it about to begin? No one knows. There is confusion and inconsistency.
In June 2025, America was not involved. This was an Israel vs Iran issue.
No one forced the United States to attack Iran then, or in February of 2026. It was a decision made by President Trump. In my opinion, it was the right decision.
Once the decision was made, we should not have stopped until the regime fell. But instead, you negotiated a cease fire that didn’t last, didn’t work and left us in no man’s land, with higher prices and our troops still deployed.
Our troops could have been home, the Navy returned to its bases, a peaceful regime in place , new alliances forged, and gas prices below $3.00 a gallon.
No, Mr. Vice President. It’s not the war. It’s the so-called cease fire.
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
Republicans got blown out because of the tariffs.
People will make a million other excuses, but it was, in fact, the tariffs.
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
Well said from Senator Curtis
After the Biden era, Americans wanted an economy that worked for them. Instead, they received a hastily executed war, headline after headline of scandals, a ballooning $40 trillion debt, and unpredictable tariffs.
It’s time for Republicans to return to the principled conservative values that once defined us—and that we've steadily abandoned over the last decade.
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
Russia lost 54,200 troops (killed or wounded) in October, the first month of the war over 50,000.
For their efforts, Russia has gained no net ground in October.
This is the most pointless war in the history of wars. Great job, Putin.
ALT Bar chart of Russian losses per month in Ukraine, Feb 2022 to Oct 2026, with October's 54,200 a record. Source: Ukraine General Staff @smirkley
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
We suspected this was the reason Ukraine’s access to Starshield was restricted. But to see it from senior officials in this reporting is still utterly unconscionable.
Let’s be absolutely clear about what this means. The Trump Administration deliberately restricted technology Ukraine relies on to intercept Russian drones and ballistic missiles. It made it harder for Ukraine to defend itself and easier for Russia to carry out its deadly attacks against Ukrainian civilians.
They knew exactly what was at stake. They knew that more Russian drones and missiles would get through, allowing Russia to kill even more Ukrainians. And yet they went ahead anyway.
This is a deliberate weaking of Ukraine’s defenses that only Russia will benefit from. It is a betrayal of our ally that this Administration cannot wash its hands of.
The American people deserve to know who made this decision, why they made it, and how they can possibly justify putting more innocent Ukrainian lives in the crosshairs of Putin’s war machine.
reuters.com/world/europe/ord…
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
It costs us nothing to warn Ukraine that another Russian salvo of ballistic missiles has been fired at their capital, and their country.
Another such salvo aimed at civilians hit just a little while ago, with no warning.
Trump and MAGA are traitors to all decent morality.
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
He is shifting focus from the disaster in the Strait of Hormuz and making Zelensky a sacrificial lamb to his base. A despicable human being who never took responsibility for anything in his life.
Trump: My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I don't want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.
Russia is doing very little, if anything, to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared to what they could be doing.
Zelenskyy is using Diesel Refineries in Russia as a target, knowing that these attacks are seriously hurting the world diesel markets, including those in the United States.
Farmers, ranchers, and businesses of all kinds are suffering greatly from this, but Russia is, nevertheless, sending, at a low price, millions of barrels of diesel to the World.
Zelenskyy doesn't care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him, and that Crooked Joe Biden gave him in the past, he doesn't want to end this war, and probably never did.
He could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now. His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead. I WANT THIS WAR END!
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
Back in November 2024 — and even until earlier this year — my analysis was that, while Trump was willing to sell out Ukraine, the payoff from normalizing relations with Russia was insufficient to cover the costs of capitulation.
I’m afraid the politics have shifted.
/1
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
After Putin conned Trump into protecting the Russian oil industry, its now on to doing the same with Russian data centers.
Whatever needs protecting, just give the Trump family a piece of it.
There's more layers to this than just the *visible* bot engagement we see every day.
Whilst the Ukraine-oriented information space often feels like it's inorganically, algorithmically subdued (and there's leaked algo docs from April 2023 to suggest it is), we know that's just a part of the bigger -- sadly more nefarious -- picture.
As many have suggested, state and non-state actors employ bot networks to monitor social platforms and respond at their directive in an attempt to manipulate public opinion. But bot activity does more than just *engage* with audiences, it can greatly *suppress* desired targets. Flooding certain content with engageless proxy connections can downrank content tremendously. It's why you often see posts with hundreds/thousands/hundreds of thousands of impressions within minutes of going live with little to no engagement.
Such activity can serve to greatly reduce the visibility of the target content. Think topics like:
- MH17
- Bucha
- Navalny
- Skripal
- Crimea annexation
- Holodomor
- Russian war crimes (Mariupol etc.)
- Wagner mutiny
- Russian battlefield losses
- Zelenskyy legitimacy
- NATO “provocation”
- Putin succession / health
- Nord Stream (anti-Russia framing)
etc.
Furthermore, AI modeling as advanced to the point where proxy traffic can be sent in prescribed volumes that are proportionate to maximize downranking effects without blasting posts into obviously inorganic metric territory. (And making it harder for detection systems to mitigate). Even if portions of traffic is blocked, the downstream downranking effects still trickle through.
Ultimately, the information space is polluted in several ways:
1) With artificially astroturfed/boosted content (be it through bot accounts and/or the propagation of useful idiots/paid propogandists.
2) The subsequent dilution of well-meaning accounts, whatever the messaging is.
3) The downranking of desired content/account targets.
With Yandex largely incapacitated, it's hard not to notice the immediate anecdotal user experience change -- never mind the objective data being published.
Just some food for thought as we all enjoy life with decreased bot traffic pitting Americans (and really everyone) against one another across every single niche information space (not just Russia/Ukraine discourse).
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
🇺🇸🇺🇦 I've said it before, and will say again now in concurrence with Michael. Cutting PURL would hurt the United States as much, if not more, than it would Ukraine. The damage becomes even more apparent when you consider the paltry potential "gain" to be had by accepting Russian diesel, as Michael highlights.
I have to conclude that both this and the refinery ceasefire are Russian proposals that were fed to Witkoff and Kushner and told sell it to President Trump, who is unsurprisingly biting. His track record of backing terrible deals only grows longer.
The Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List is how the United States sells weapons to Europe, which are then provided for Ukraine’s defenses. The price tag for these weapons is in the billions of dollars (upwards of $6.7 billion to date), orders of magnitude higher than what the Russian diesel deal is worth. Trump would be losing money — and costing the American defense industry revenue — for a sham deal with Russia that benefits none outside of Moscow and Miami. Just to give you a sense of his prioritized requirements.
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
The Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List is how the United States sells weapons to Europe, which are then provided for Ukraine’s defenses. The price tag for these weapons is in the billions of dollars (upwards of $6.7 billion to date), orders of magnitude higher than what the Russian diesel deal is worth. Trump would be losing money — and costing the American defense industry revenue — for a sham deal with Russia that benefits none outside of Moscow and Miami. Just to give you a sense of his prioritized requirements.
The Trump administration is threatening to halt the PURL weapons procurement program and cut intelligence sharing to force Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries, FT reports.
ft.com/content/68fd8c4f-6f34…
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
Why are we still buying Russian oil?
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Important context: (10/09/26). Donald Trump announced a deal with Vladimir Putin for Russia to supply diesel fuel to global and American markets.
truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTru…
cbsnews.com/news/trump-rus…
(10/09/26). US Department of Treasury, issues licenses Russia to sell and distribute diesel oil.
ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions…
Ben Huber 🇺🇸🇺🇦 retweeted
President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.
While Ukraine fights for its survival, Putin’s war machine continues to prosecute his terrorist war on civilian populations and innocent Ukrainians are dying every day.
Now, Instead of implementing the tough sanctions Lindsey Graham fought to his last breath to enact, President Trump has announced the United States is lifting sanctions on Russian energy, fueling the Putin’s war machine.
As I saw firsthand in Ukraine last month, Putin is losing this war. Ukraine has fought the Russian military to a standstill and reinvented warfare with drones taking the fight into the heart of Russia.
America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin’s war machine. Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration.
Putin doesn’t want peace. Putin wants Ukraine. I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia’s military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.
America is the Leader of the Free World. For our National Security, for the security of our Allies in Europe including Ukraine, President Trump should rescind this deal immediately and return to the strong policies of our four years in the White House; impose harsh sanctions on any nation purchasing Russian energy and work with our allies to ensure Ukraine has the military support it needs to repel and defeat this Russian invasion once and for all. Slava Ukraini🇺🇸🇺🇦