Before she's an MSNBC host, Andrea Mitchell is NBC's senior foreign-affairs correspondent. She's covered the State Department for many years. But she's especially "helpful" when the Democrat diplomats are in power.
Two months ago, she lauded Joe Biden's nomination of Antony Blinken as Secretary of State as "a signal to the world, a signal to the federal bureaucracy, to use Joe Biden’s phrase, that America is back, and that repairing America's footing on the world stage is an urgent goal."
On Wednesday, Mitchell and MSNBC host Hallie Jackson welcomed a "new era" of American foreign policy on MSNBC Live as Anthony Blinken gave his first speech as Secretary of State to the department where he promised to be a different kind of secretary than his Trump-era predecessors.
Speaking against the backdrop of President Biden's phone call with Vladimir Putin, Jackson asked Mitchell her thoughts on Blinken, "And, Andrea, quickly here too, Secretary Blinken, you've covered many secretaries of state, different tone from him more broadly as well as we enter this new era for the Biden administration and the U.S. on the global stage."
Mitchell replied that Blinken's appointment reflects "a return to normal" because "Mike Pompeo and his predecessor, to be fair, Rex Tillerson, who hollowed out the State Department, diplomats were told, especially during impeachment, there were whistleblowers and diplomats were forced out. There are 1,000 fewer career diplomats than there had been four years ago when Tony Blinken was deputy secretary of state and left."
According to Mitchell, Blinken's style isn't the only thing that will make him a better secretary, but his substance too, "So, this is a return to valuing diplomacy, valuing relations with allies, not with dictators, and the first evidence of that, of course, is going to be the Putin phone call, the Putin relationship. But then going forward on Iran, Yemen, with the Saudis, on the Middle East."
Mitchell's biased and grossly oversimplified view of Trump's foreign policy record ignores the fact that he used diplomacy to achieve multiple Israeli-Arab peace deals, something that would not have happened had he listened to Mitchell and the rest of the media on Iran and Saudi Arabia, given the latter's role as the most influential Arab state.
Additionally, Blinken has praised the Trump record in that respect and has said that he "was right" on China. Given Blinken's support for two of Trump's defining policies, the only question is whether Mitchell will accuse him of being soft on dictators if he returns to the nuclear deal with Iran without further concessions. Does Andrea think Iran isn't a dictatorship, or a state sponsor of terrorism?
This segment was sponsored by Progressive
Here is a transcript for the January 27 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson
10:03 AM ET
HALLIE JACKSON: And, Andrea, quickly here too, Secretary Blinken, you've covered many secretaries of state, different tone from him more broadly as well as we enter this new era for the Biden administration and the U.S. on the global stage.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, it's a return to normal. When I first started covering the secretary of state back in 1994 with Warren Christopher and then Madeleine Albright and all the others, you know, Republicans and Democrats. Mike Pompeo and his predecessor, to be fair, Rex Tillerson, who hallowed out the State Department, diplomats were told, especially during impeachment, there were whistleblowers and diplomats were forced out. There are 1,000 fewer career diplomats than there had been four years ago when Tony Blinken was deputy secretary of state and left. So, this is a return to valuing diplomacy, valuing relations with allies, not with dictators, and the first evidence of that, of course, is going to be the Putin phone call, the Putin relationship. But then going forward on Iran, Yemen, with the Saudis, on the Middle East.
