Waltz: We’re Rewarding China with a Meeting the Same Way We Rewarded Russia After Pipeline Hack

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) argued that Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China in the wake of a rash of bad behavior by the Chinese Communist Party is rewarding bad behavior in the same way the Biden administration rewarded Russia by meeting with them after the Colonial pipeline hack in 2021.

While discussing the recent cyberattack on the U.S. government, co-host Dana Perino said, [relevant exchange begins around 1:15] “I thought the Biden administration asked Russia not to do this.”

Waltz responded, “They did. Remember the Colonial pipeline hack that shut down gas supplies to the entire east coast? What happened? Russia gets rewarded with a summit that they used for their own internal propaganda, and then you get a list of things not to do, a mother may I from the president of the United States on the international stage.”

Perino then stated, “So, that didn’t work.”

Waltz responded, “Not so much.”

After the discussion turned to Blinken’s China visit, Waltz stated that the Biden administration has a view that “if we only just engage with China enough, if we only just get them to the table, the bad behavior will stop. If we couple with them economically, it’ll change them politically. We thought that thinking was dead. … But here we have our Secretary of State on the international stage after harassing our ships, harassing our planes, literally breaking into military bases in Alaska, the spy balloon, and now the revelation of a spy base right on our shores in Cuba, and yet, they get rewarded.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett