Pompeo Hits Biden over 'Pointless' Summit with Putin:
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday ridiculed President Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“He was all carrot and no stick,” the former Trump administration official said. “That won’t work with Vladimir Putin, and as a result of that, I am confident Vladimir Putin returned to Russia feeling like he accomplished an awful lot.”
Biden’s recent trip to Europe, which included a summit with European allies, produced nothing positive for America, said Pompeo, who was interviewed over the weekend on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC-AM.
“The nicest thing I can say is that it was pointless, but it’s probably worse than that,” he said.
The fact that Biden got a warm reception from European leaders means nothing to Americans, Pompeo said.
Leaders of “big-government leftist governments in Europe” were happy to see Biden because he is one of them and wants to put their type of social welfare state in place in America, the former secretary of state said.
He noted that French President Emmanuel Macron referred to Biden as “part of the club.”
“Look, when we traveled to Europe to build out NATO and to secure freedom for America, we preferred to not be liked but to demand respect, and to help them spend more of their money, not ours, to defend themselves,” Pompeo said.
“This is fundamentally different than what the Biden administration has done, where they no longer have America first at the center of what they are doing,” he said.
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“After President Biden left the G-7 and NATO, he traveled to meet with Vladimir Putin, and he had already, before he even arrived, given the Russians an enormous number of gifts in terms of allowing them to build out their pipeline, relieving sanctions on one of Putin’s best friends, he rejoined a nuclear deal with them, a strategic arms deal with them, and extracted nothing,” the former secretary of state said.
The pipeline deal to which Pompeo referred was Nord Stream 2, which is designed to ship oil from Russia to Germany. Former President Donald Trump had blocked construction of the project, but Biden gave it the green light.
Pompeo gave his bottom line on Biden’s performance.
“This was not America’s finest moment,” he said. “It wasn’t America strong.”
Pompeo bristled at Biden’s presentation to Putin of 16 infrastructure areas that Biden said cannot be hit by cyberattacks, saying the president in essence said anything else is fair game.
The former secretary of state called the list “bizarre.”
“It’s essentially a target list as well,” he said. “Not only does it tell him where the free-fire zone is — things you can do without any cost — but it tells you the things that matter most, and the places you really ought to focus your effort.
“I don’t know what he said about those 16 industrial sectors, but I don’t think Vladimir Putin thinks for a second that if he attacks one of those sectors that this administration will impose real costs on him.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
