He’s looking at you, Jake Sullivan. A former official for the Obama administration is coming forward with a suggestion for Joe Biden. It’s time for Biden to fire his national security team and start from scratch. At the top of his list is Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
Brett Bruen, former Director of Global Engagement for the Obama White House, wrote an op-ed published by USA Today. The title says it all – “Biden’s careless comments are hurting his presidency and diplomacy. He needs a reset.” Bruen makes the case that Biden’s “reckless rifts” and foreign policy gaffes undermine America’s standing in the world and hand “propaganda points” to adversaries. He’s not wrong. We’ve seen it over and over again, from the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan all the way to recent statements on defending Taiwan and giving approval to a small incursion into Ukraine by the Mad Man of Moscow.
“I used to cringe when Vice President Joe Biden took to the podium. Despite all the preparation that went into an event and his remarks, as a staffer on the National Security Council, you never quite knew what he might say,” he wrote.
“At times, his offhanded comments could spice up what otherwise would be a pretty boring policy address. Yet, there were other times, too many times, when it could veer into dangerous terrain,” he continued.
“The reckless riffs have continued during his presidency, especially when discussing diplomacy,” he wrote.
We all cringe when we see Biden walk up to a podium. We know what’s coming. The truth is that Joe Biden is not able to make a speech by reading off a teleprompter. He loses his place and then he wings it, which is where the gaffes and reckless rifts come in. Biden thinks if he goes off teleprompter and ad libs during a speech, he’ll be able to make the audience relate to what he is saying. Instead, he sticks with the same stories ad nauseam and eyeballs roll. Grandpa Joe talks about his own mother and father, or he speaks of his now deceased son, Beau, as though Beau’s service in Iraq makes his a Gold Star father. For obvious reasons, he never brings Hunter’s name into a story, nor does he bring up his daughter with Jill, Ashley. Americans don’t want some personal story (likely fabricated) from Joe Biden, they want to know what he is going to do to turn things around. Times are very difficult for most Americans right now and good old Joe is pointing fingers at Republicans and Trump instead of offering his own plans or solutions. Democrats are in charge of both the House and the Senate, as well as the White House. Blaming Republicans for his failures, or the former president who hasn’t been in office for sixteen months is ridiculous. His historically low poll numbers show that no one believes his excuses.
Bruen pointed to the obvious, that Biden is responsible for his own ineptness but some blame should fall on his national security team. How do they keep giving him the opportunity to ad lib and go off on his random tangents without properly briefing him on questions that he may get. That’s assuming that he even takes questions, though, because usually he does not.
Bruen also placed blame on Biden’s national security team, saying, “They are all too aware that he has this troublesome tendency to go off script.” They should better prepare the president for “obvious questions” and also be prepared themselves in advance with responses and “strategies for when the president sails the ship of state into unchartered waters.”
“Sometimes, the president’s experience and overconfidence do not serve him well,” Bruen said. “Decades doing diplomacy have led to Biden developing pretty rigid perceptions and policy positions. He is often stuck in outdated notions of how the world works. Repeatedly, we have watched him stick to his guns, even as events in places like Kabul radically changed.”
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Hard to believe I agree with an Obama alum, especially one involved in national security, but here we are. Bruen is right. Biden should start with firing Jake Sullivan. Frankly, I’ve been asking why Sullivan even has a job in the White House, especially after his involvement in the bogus Alfa Bank story was revealed by the Durham investigation. How is it possible that Biden named Sullivan as his national security adviser when Sullivan was deliberately spreading the Alfa Bank story on social media to benefit the Hillary Clinton campaign? Sullivan is now the guy who weighs national security intelligence reports for Biden. This is so corrupt and swampy, it is almost unbelievable. Almost. We’re talking about the Big Guy’s administration here.
After the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, many heads should have rolled, including Sullivan, Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. They had intelligence reports that the Taliban were poised to take the country back once American troops left yet Biden denied any such possibility right up until it predictably happened. Why did Sullivan allow that to happen? Why hasn’t Sullivan done the honorable thing and resigned? No one has been held accountable for the thirteen souls lost during the final day of the Afghanistan evacuation.
He reiterated his call “after the botched pullout of American forces from Afghanistan” to fire Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. “He remains, and so do the process problems,” Bruen added.
“This is an extraordinarily dangerous time for the United States and our allies. It requires a strong and consistent level of diplomatic discipline. I fear that anything less could lead us unnecessarily into a conflict, whether with China, Iran, Russia or North Korea,” he wrote.
“At the very least, from our own hemisphere to the Asia Pacific region, we have unnecessarily undermined our standing and irresponsibly handed propaganda points to our adversaries. Something needs to fundamentally change in how this White House deals with diplomacy,” he continued.
Whatever happened to all those experienced professionals we were told by Biden that he’d be hiring for his White House? What happened to all that foreign policy experience Joe Biden has boasted about for 40 years? It was all a lie. Biden is the ultimate Swamp creature and a legend in his own mind. He spent almost fifty years in office yet has no successes to speak of. He failed at surrounding himself with competent people, choosing to bring back Obama’s people and his own staffers from his time in the Senate and as vice-president.
“They have repeatedly shown an inability to execute and to staff him effectively. We need more experienced leaders who can speak truth to power and implement our foreign policy without so many fumbles,” he concluded.
This isn’t a case of Bruen waiting until things are as bad as they are now to speak up. He also called for a ‘shake-up’ in Biden’s national security team after the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. He called for the firing of Jake Sullivan then, too. Bruen was right then and he’s still right now. Too bad no one is listening at the White House. Joe Biden is dangerously incompetent and too arrogant to see it.
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