A.G. Gancarski
Republican members of Florida’s congressional delegation continue to warn that the President’s tendency to misspeak is a foreign policy liability.
The latest to offer such cautions: Rep. Mike Waltz of St. Augustine, who told a national television audience Thursday of his concerns about the “messaging strategy,” or lack thereof, from President Joe Biden regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s just the actual lack of a messaging strategy that has me concerned,” the second-term Congressman and former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney said.
“It is just gaffe on top of gaffe,” Waltz said. “And when you’re the Commander in Chief, leader of the free world, with your adversaries watching every signal and every message, these continued missed messages on top of his disastrous trip out to Europe, when he hinted to the 82nd Airborne that they could be in Ukraine soon, I’d like to think this is part of a broader strategy to keep (Vladimir) Putin on his back foot.”
Waltz was on the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Company” when he made the comments, reacting to widely publicized remarks Biden made to a union this week, where he said, “If I’ve got to go to war, I’m going with you guys.”
As Waltz suggested, Biden’s comments have caused concern before, with the “gaffe” construction popularized by the New York Post seeming to resonate the most on the Florida right.
Earlier this week, Sen. Marco Rubio spoke to Sean Hannity of Fox News, warning of the global impact of the President’s penchant for malapropism.
“But it’s not like foreign leaders and foreign adversaries don’t watch the same video. And they watch the same things,” Rubio said.
“That’s the part that concerns me with all these gaffes,” Rubio continued. “It’s not just the impact it’s having here domestically on Americans. I feel like Americans understand that our system’s about a lot more than Joe Biden, although his administration is doing a lot of damage.”
The Senator’s interview was roughly in the middle of the program, a few minutes after an opening monologue from the host lampooning the President for saying Saturday that former First Lady Michelle Obama was once Vice President, and insisting again on Monday, without evidence, that he was once a truck driver.
“Our allies start to lose confidence in our country, and our adversaries start to wonder whether they can get away with certain things,” Rubio added, including Russia’s Putin.
Last month, Sen. Rick Scott blasted what many interpreted as a call from the President for regime change in Russia, urging Biden to “stop misspeaking.”
The misspeaking that Scott described came at the end of Biden’s Warsaw speech, where he said the following regarding Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” The White House promptly tried to walk this statement back.
4 comments
Frankie M.
April 7, 2022 at 10:24 am
At least they’re sticking to their talking points. Is there some email circulating somewhere with action item points? If so, can I subscribe? Or is it just the echo chamber of faux news? Maybe Biden should just send out random tweets & go off on crazy tangents like his predecessor. That should appease his detractors that are so concerned about messaging.
TJC
April 7, 2022 at 10:53 am
At a rare moment in time when it should be natural for politicians on all sides to keep united in the face of a common enemy, leave it to the spineless, ambitious, and self-absorbed to get “concerned” about President Biden’s messaging. Only a moron would think Biden has given mixed messaging regarding the war in Ukraine. His message is clear, and he has united NATO and all European allies behind his message: we must do everything in our power, short of World War Three, to stop Putin’s aggression and destroy Putin’s dream of rebuilding the Soviet Union, and we must do it there, in Ukraine. For Waltz, Rubio, and Scott to suggest that Biden’s message is so unclear that it could cause harm is disingenuous at best, and helpful to Putin’s propaganda machine at worst. You can bet their “concerns” are all over Russian state television.
Where were the likes of Waltz, Rubio, and Scott when Trump was bashing NATO, bashing the European Union, and praising (still praising) Putin’s “genius.” Talk about mixed messaging. They were spineless in the face of Trump’s disastrous European “policies,” and now, in all selfishness, their ambitions come first — our country and our allies, second.
Charlotte Greenbarg
April 8, 2022 at 7:20 am
The far left is trying to provide cover for a disaster in the making.
Alexander Vindman Soul
April 12, 2022 at 2:25 pm
Charlotte, could you please describe the disaster in the making? TJC assessment is spot on from an objective lens.
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