I’ve never had any confidence in Joe Biden. The man has been wrong so many times over the years, there was never any reason to believe that in the White House that he’d get any better.
Biden ran as the candidate with unmatched experience and was even chosen to join Obama on his ticket in 2008 to balance Obama’s incredibly meager resumé, but there was never any reason to be fooled that Biden’s experience actually meant any kind of competence.
In fact, Obama’s former defense secretary, Robert Gates, once noted that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” This record of poor judgment continued upon his taking office, and his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan proved to be one of his most consequential actions.
Now we’re seeing Biden desperately treading water with Russia, and it’s becoming quite clear that Biden doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing and is making lame excuses for his failures.
For example, on Thursday, Biden suggested that sanctions were never meant to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine.
“Sir, deterrence didn’t work,” a reporter noted during Biden’s press conference at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. “What makes you think Vladimir Putin will alter course based on the action you’ve taken today?”
“Let’s get something straight,” Biden snapped. “You remember, if you covered me from the very beginning, I did not say that, in fact, the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter.”
“The maintenance of sanctions, increasing the pain and the demonstration [is] why I asked for this NATO meeting today, is to be sure that after a month, we will sustain what we’re doing, not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year,” Biden added.
Biden’s paltry sanctions may not have been an effective deterrent, but despite what he said, that was absolutely the intent of them.
The “purpose of the sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence,” Kamala Harris said back in February. She may not be the most reliable person in the administration, but she most certainly got that line from White House talking points.
She also wasn’t the only one who said this. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN before the invasion that the “purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter Russia from going to war.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also said that “sanctions can be a powerful tool” and that the purpose of the sanctions on Russia prior to the invasion was to “have a deterrent effect.” This sentiment was also echoed by Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby and others for weeks.
Today Biden again said that sanctions would not “deter” Putin from invading Ukraine.
His administration said the EXACT OPPOSITE for weeks.
ROLL THE TAPE! pic.twitter.com/C4ffAnEz3d
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 24, 2022
So, was this another one of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline moments? Does he simply not know what he’s doing or what’s going on and is making things up as he goes along? Was he just making excuses for why his meager sanctions failed? Or was this Biden trying to rewrite history by saying the exact opposite of what he and his administration have been arguing for weeks now?
I think the answer is clear. Biden never admitted he was wrong after his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and he won’t admit his sanction failed to prevent Putin from invading Russia.
