OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
One Republican senator is wondering who is in charge at the White House because he does not believe that Joe Biden is.
During a Senate hearing with Secretary of State Antony Blinken before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations regarding the withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan, Fox News reported.
“One of the things we need to get to the bottom to is who is responsible for this? Who made the decisions?” Idaho Sen. James Risch said.”[Biden] can’t even speak without someone in the White House censoring it or signing off on it.”
The senator made reference to an incident on Monday when the White House apparently cut Biden’s feed during his briefing on wildfires with federal and state officials. Biden was cut off mid-sentence during a question to George Geissler of the National Association of State Foresters.
“This is a puppeteer act, if you would, and we need to know who’s in charge and who is making the decisions,” the senator said.
“There is not enough lipstick in the world to put on this pig to make it look any differently than what it actually is,” he said. The American people want to know who is responsible for this?”
“Ultimately, the president makes the decisions,” Blinken insisted. “As in every case, ultimately decisions that can only be decided by the president are decided by the president.”
But the senator talked again about the incident on Monday.
“Somebody in the White House has authority to press the button and stop the president, cut off the president’s speaking ability and sound. Who is that person?” he said.
“There is no such person,” Blinken responded. He said that Biden “speaks very clearly and very deliberately for himself. No one else does.”
The example the senator used is one of many curiosities with Biden. An incident in June was another.
Biden and members of his team met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday morning at the NATO summit in Brussels.
After being held outside the room for 90 minutes, reporters were finally allowed in the room.
Biden said they had a good meeting and that was it.
Biden sat there in silence while White House staff yelled at reporters to get out of the room.
How said is it that so many are trying to prevent Biden from speaking on the world stage?
WATCH:
Biden clearly does not speak for himself.
Biden’s “handlers” at the White House are “clarifying” that he did not agree to any “swaps” of cyber-criminals with Moscow after Biden appeared to agree with a proposal floated by Russian Vladimir Vladamir Putin.
Putin had suggested a proposal to extradite any U.S. ransom hackers to Russia in exchange for sending any Russian hackers to the U.S.
Biden originally told reporters that the proposal was a sign of “progress,” but then his own security advisor walked it back and said the U.S. already holds hackers to account.
“If we agree to extradite criminals, then, of course, Russia will do that, we will do that, but only if the other side, in this case the United States, agrees to the same and will extradite the criminals in question to the Russian Federation,” Putin said in the interview.
When asked about it at the G7 Summit, Biden said: “That’s potentially a good sign of progress.”
“Yes, I’m open to, if there are crimes committed against Russia, then, in fact, people committing those crimes are being harbored in the United States, I’m committing to holding them accountable,” Biden said.
Then, on a flight to Brussels, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan clarified that Biden was not contemplating any kind of a “swap.”
