The United States’ traditional adversaries, as well as “some of our allies” are “really testing” President Joe Biden’s administration and his policy, former acting Director of National Intelligence and ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell told Newsmax TV Saturday.
“I think Russia and North Korea and Iran, China I would put in there, even some of our allies are really testing the Biden administration and the Biden policy,” Grenell told Newsmax TV’s “The Count.” “Clearly, we have been beaten down.”
It was “quite embarrassing” for a recent U.S. delegation, led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to be lectured to by China about human rights, during meetings held on American soil in Alaska, said Grenell, but now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is beginning to flex Russia’s muscle concerning Ukraine.
There is a new national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Blinken, said Grenell, but Susan Rice, now the director of the U.S Domestic Policy Council after having served as former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, is “clearly calling all of the shots,” said Grenell.
“They need to start focusing on sending a message of strength, rather than this idea of just looking for consensus, cutting the policy and half and both sides heralding that we have progress because we need to defend American and U.S. national security by standing firm rather than caving,” Grenell added.
For four years, there has been a narrative that Trump was “owned by Putin,” show co-host Andrew Giuliani said, but it was in 2014, during Obama’s term, that Russia annexed Crimea, and now there is renewed aggression at the nation’s border with Ukraine.
Former National Security Council Secretary Fred Fleitz, also on “The Count” Saturday, said he thinks the Biden administration is “conveying weakness and confusion.”
“Look at how Putin laughed at our president when he called Putin a killer for no apparent reason,” said Fleitz, referring to when Biden agreed with a question posed to him about if he would agree on that point about the Russian leader.
“Remember when President Trump said to the North Koreans, they would face ‘fire and fury like the world had never seen’ after five ballistic missiles?” Fleitz added. “Well, Biden’s response to North Korea’s test of missiles is that North Korea will face responses. You know we’re driving our adversaries to work with one another. No one is afraid of this president. No one is afraid of the United States. I think this is profoundly destabilizing and I am really worried what form of alliance, what new axis of evil we’re going to see, because of the enormous instability and weakness we’re going to see in the world.”
Source: Newmax
