On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger said that a tweet by House Republicans criticizing President Joe Biden as weak on the world stage fed into Putin’s narrative and said that Republicans will say “Biden is incompetent and can’t do anything, and whatever he does will be wrong, even if it is against Vladimir Putin” even if they’re saying he isn’t being strong enough against Putin.
Earlier in the day, the House Republican Conference tweeted a picture of Biden walking away from the podium with the text, “This is what weakness on the world stage looks like.”
In response, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), tweeted, “As still ‘technically’ a member of [H]ouse Republicans, let me, with all my might, condemn this damn awful tweet during this crisis. You can criticize policy but this is insane and feeds into Putin[‘]s narrative. But hey, retweets amirite?”
Borger responded that Kinzinger is “100% right. I mean, there is the president of the United States, who is just talking about the fact that Ukraine is being invaded by Russia, and what do they do? the president has just told — spoken to the country, and he’s walking off the stage. I mean, I’m old enough to remember when something like that would be considered a disgrace by any official arm of the Republican Party. but obviously, that’s not the case anymore. There are people who believe, and I think obviously, for political reasons, right now, that there is no bar that is too low to criticize Biden on foreign policy. Whether it’s we ought to take a harder line, or this isn’t our problem. Whatever it is, the official line will be, as you just saw, in that photograph, that Biden is incompetent and can’t do anything, and whatever he does will be wrong, even if it is against Vladimir Putin.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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