Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and interim Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell noted in an interview Tuesday that Biden’s diplomatic team has not been very active following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He also said in an interview with Newsmax that former President Donald Trump’s four-year term was an object lesson in how to avoid conflict using foreign and domestic policies.
First, Grenell took aim at Secretary of State should be actively traveling Europe and Asia in a bid to find a diplomatic solution to the war, but that he has not been “very active.”
I am a diplomat,” Grenell told “John Bachman Now.” “I always see a path for diplomacy, even when the bombs are about to go off.”
Blinken, he added, ought to be having meetings and employing diplomatic processes all over Europe, but “I just don’t see him being very active.”
He added that he’s glad talks between Russia and Ukraine are continuing and that press releases only tell half the story.
“Hopefully, smart diplomats are talking privately and saying one thing privately about what they really want to happen and then being very general in their public statements,” Grenell said.
“The last thing you need right now is having the media or the public talking about the details before you can get a deal done … good diplomacy means that you don’t get everything. But if you have really good negotiators, then you can represent your side pretty well,” he continued.
Grenell then talked about what may have helped embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Newsmax:
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has opened many questions about the United States’ lack of energy independence under President Joe Biden, and Grenell pointed out that maintaining control over oil and other energy sources is one of the reasons go to war.
“You look at the stance of Germany for 16 years under Chancellor [Angela] Merkel, and they cozied up to the Russians,” Grenell said. “As soon as Merkel was gone, and the new government came in, they said, no more. We’ve got to pay our NATO obligations. We’ve got to be a strong western ally and we got to stop buying this energy from Russia.”
He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputation is “ruined” over the invasion while going on to point out Trump’s foreign and domestic policies helped avoid such situations.
“I don’t think any country is going to want to do business with him,” he said. “The lesson for America is that the four years of Donald Trump, when we were able to produce energy for ourselves and become an energy exporter, that’s when we really saw peace.”
Grenell said if Americans are tired of seeing gas prices skyrocketing, then “you better be advocating for America and our politicians to find energy sources here in the United States and not buying it from somewhere else.”
He then talked about a world leadership “vacuum” under President Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden is totally failing,” Grenell said. “This is not just a partisan statement. You look at all the polls and his numbers are the lowest ever and now we’ve got inflation going through the roof. Gas prices.
“All of this is because Joe Biden abandoned Donald Trump’s idea of putting America first and instead really allowed the Europeans to veto some of our policies,” he continued.