Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Monday on MSNBC’s “All In” that President Joe Biden has been playing such a “strong hand” during the Russian invasion of Ukraine it has caused China to “step back.”
Hayes said, “How do you see the developments today, Jake Sullivan, seven-hour meeting, the U.S. being quite vocal about his concerns about China, and China aligning with Russia. How do you assess this?”
Murphy said, “I think a lot of people scratch their heads a bit in the early days of this conflict, in the weeks leading up to it, asking why President Biden was not acting unilaterally without Europe. The reason for that is, first, he just believes that it would be the strongest response to Russia these economic sanctions together. But because President Biden has been around long enough to know that the Chinese didn’t listen to you if you are speaking only for your own country, but they listened too is multilateral consequences.”
He added, “So we can take a strong position with China right now, because if they do decide to get some military deal with the Russians to resupply what they have lost on the battlefield, it is now not the United States that’s going to hand consequences to China, it’s the United States and an unprecedented array of allies that have been put in place by the president. So you are right, these are tough words to China, but this president, President Biden is playing a pretty strong hand right now. I think that that has cause of the Chinese to step back and do an assessment of whether this is in their best interest to stay allied with Russia on this increasingly disastrous invasion.
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