On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) stated that if President Joe Biden “denies” House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) planned trip to Taiwan, it would project weakness and end up creating “a predicate” for China to invade Taiwan the same way Biden lifting sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline laid the predicate for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
McCaul stated, [relevant remarks begin around 1:05] “If President Biden denies the Speaker of the House, the Speaker of the House of all people, denies a trip to Taiwan, what message does that send to President Xi? It’s, once again, projecting weakness to our adversaries. What does that say to Xi? What did it say to Putin, right, when he did the Nord Stream 2? He invades Ukraine. Xi’s going to see it as weakness. It lays a predicate for invading Taiwan. I think this is a trip that needs to go forward, and I think it would be extraordinary for a President of the United States to [deny] his Speaker of the House to travel to Taiwan in a sign of support for that country.”
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