Now the whole cleanup raises the question of whether defectors are doing more damage than the president’s initial candor by undermining his authority.
Biden is a self-confessed blunder machine — his loose tongue often got him into hot water in the Senate, and it’s why he was initially distrusted by some Obama administration aides as vice president. But Biden is now the commander-in-chief, and he can talk all he wants — until the cleanup operation kicks in.
Often this comes across as disrespecting the president. Thus it seems that he does not know his own mind or deviated from the script set for him by subordinates. He offers an opportunity for Republicans who question his cognitive capacity and prime-time fitness. But the problem is deeper: the president’s words resonate. During a crisis, lives can be at risk. Their words move the markets. The constant correction sows confusion about Biden’s authority and leadership.
Politicians often run for office promising to say it is. Biden’s friend, the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, for example, traveled to the 2008 Republican nomination aboard the Straight Talk Express. But honesty and candor are often not conducive to governance. When the big man deviates from the message, he can short-circuit the political machinery and undermine nuanced positions on Capitol Hill. That was the case this week, when Biden’s declaration that the pandemic is over in an interview on “60 Minutes” undermined House and Senate Democrats’ push for the White House’s own request for billions more dollars in Covid-19 funding.
Biden on Taiwan: Strategic Confusion or Stroke of Genius?
Biden sparked international controversy over his latest pledge, in an interview aired Sunday, to defend Taiwan if China invades. He has said something similar at least three times before, completely trampling on the principle of “strategic ambiguity” that leaves it unclear how the US will respond. The policy is designed to make China think twice, but also to avoid giving the Taiwanese a sense of security that could spur independence.
But every time Biden has apparently moved the ball to Taiwan, his officials have turned it back.
There’s no doubt that Biden knew exactly what he was doing when he answered yes to a pointed question from CBS’s Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes” about whether he would deploy American men and women to defend Taiwan if it were attacked.
But national security adviser Jake Sullivan insisted on Tuesday that Biden had not changed policy and dismissed it as an answer to a “hypothetical” question, even though US intelligence believes China is building a force capable of seizing Taiwan.
“The president is a direct and straightforward person. He answered hypothetically. He has responded in a similar manner before. And it was also clear that he did not change US policy toward Taiwan,” Sullivan told reporters.
Biden did reaffirm his support in the interview for the One China policy and other foundational diplomatic texts with China. But Sullivan’s comment suggests there is a gap between US Taiwan policy and what Biden says it is. That will raise fears of misunderstandings that could be dangerous.
Biden’s allies on Capitol Hill argued Tuesday that strategic confusion could be a virtue — after all, if Americans can’t figure out what the policy is, then China doesn’t stand a chance.
“Even going back, it becomes a strategic ambiguity, so I think it’s all part of a strategic ambiguity,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said Tuesday. His fellow Connecticut Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy, also pointed out that it was less a disconnect in the White House than an example of strategic acumen.
“Whether it’s intentional or not, it certainly serves the purpose of keeping China guessing.” And that’s the whole point, is to be in a position to defend Taiwan without making the express promise ahead of time,” Murphy said.
But Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the uncertainty is harmful.
“You know what they’re going to think about our politics if they have the president of the United States saying we’re going to go to war and it’s not consistent with what anybody else is saying?”
“So it’s not good for China to have to watch.”
But former Trump administration defense secretary Mark Esper tried to bring the president into the camp of hawks who want a tougher Taiwan policy.
“He’s said it four times now, I think it’s spot on, and they’re not trying to downplay it, they’re trying to completely undermine it to say there’s no policy change,” Esper told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “We must move away from strategic ambiguity if we want to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Heavy talk about Putin
This is not the first time the president’s simple words have resonated abroad.
In Warsaw in March, he said Putin “cannot stay in power”. The White House was quick to clarify that the president was not talking about regime change. Foreign policy experts have accused him of personalizing the feud with Putin over Ukraine. But Biden’s comment has aged well, at least as a moral judgment. And the president has actually studiously avoided testing Putin’s invisible red lines that could trigger a clash with NATO.
Indeed, his jab at Putin pales in comparison to the intemperance of some of his predecessors, including former President Donald Trump, who boasted that he had a “much bigger” and “more powerful” nuclear button than North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. And in 1984, a leaked joke made during a microphone test by President Ronald Reagan about the US beginning bombing Russia “in five minutes” caused an uproar.
Biden offers GOP opening after declaration of end of pandemic
But Biden’s outspokenness isn’t just causing trouble abroad. His remark in the 60 Minutes interview that the “pandemic is over” alarmed government public health officials, appeared to anger Democrats on Capitol Hill, who argued for more aid and offered Republicans some leeway. Biden qualified his remark by saying that Covid-19 is still a problem and there is much work to be done. But he again prompted officials to try to rephrase exactly what he meant and drew criticism from epidemiologists.
“What the president is reflecting is the fact that we have made tremendous progress against Covid-19. We’re in a very different place now than we were at the beginning of this pandemic,” Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told MSNBC in an attempt to defuse Biden’s remark without contradicting him.
The impression that Biden’s remark was more rash than considered strategy was heightened Tuesday night when Biden embraced Murty’s frame at a fundraiser in New York.
Some medical experts have warned that the president has reduced coronavirus deaths roughly equivalent to the number of victims since Sept. 11, 2001, each week. They said their indicators did not justify declaring the end of the pandemic. And they worried that Biden had hurt efforts to get people incentivized.
Still, Biden may be right, too. For many Americans, the sick and vulnerable aside, the pandemic — as it was originally experienced in the depths of 2020 — is over. Now the disease is becoming endemic, and thanks to vaccines, many people’s lives are returning to normal. Sports stadiums are packed with fans without masks. Nations such as New Zealand and Australia, which have cut themselves off from the world, have eased travel restrictions. Only China is sticking to its “zero Covid” policy – apparently to save the embarrassment of the hardline leaders who imposed it.
Still, Biden has created a huge political headache as the administration asks Congress for an additional $22.4 billion for Covid mitigation efforts.
“We need more sources to make sure everything is finished,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday.
“Covid is not over,” said Kaine, the Virginia Democrat, adding, “We need help.”
But Republicans like Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is a member of his party’s leadership, seized the moment: “If it’s all over, then I wouldn’t suspect they need more money.”
Biden’s habit of making bold statements that clarify themselves may also come back to haunt him on the campaign trail. Last month, in an off-the-record comment, he described Trump’s “extreme MAGA philosophy” as “semi-fascism.”
Even some Democrats thought he went too far, and Biden seems to agree that he’s hit a Hillary Clinton-esque “basket of misfortune” blunder. He hasn’t used the construct since and insists that only marginal MAGA voters, not all Republicans, are bad.
But now everyone knows what he really thinks. The same could be true of Taiwan, although Sullivan insisted at the White House that what Biden said didn’t count.
“When the president of the United States wants to announce a change in policy, he’s going to do it. He hasn’t,” the national security adviser said.
But after so many unequivocal statements and concessions, how will anyone know for sure if they do?
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