After desperately trying to blame Donald Trump for the current crisis in Ukraine – happening over a year into Joe Biden’s presidency – on her MSNBC show early Tuesday afternoon, anchor Andrea Mitchell couldn’t handle it when former National Security Adviser John Bolton told her that it was Biden’s foreign policy that had “failed.”
“Just to go back to the Trump years....because that’s when Ukraine became so politicized as part of an impeachment,” Mitchell argued. She wildly claimed that the flimsy premise of Democrats’ first impeachment of Trump was what emboldened Vladimir Putin to move to invade Ukraine: “There was one call in particular, the so-called ‘perfect call’ Trump had with, you know, Zelenskyy, which, you know, certainly telegraphed to the Kremlin that they could do what they wanted with Ukraine, that America would not stand up.”
Mitchell conveniently ignored Putin’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine that went unchallenged by the Obama/Biden administration. That weakness was far more of a provocation for Putin to invade again with Biden back in office, this time as president.
Bolton, a former Trump adviser turned harsh critic, didn’t object to Mitchell’s ranting against the former president, but he did point out: “Well, I think Putin was undoubtedly waiting for a second Trump term, but he’s getting, effectively, almost what he would have expected then. This is going to be a victory for Russia.”
Mitchell was visibly stunned by his assessment that Biden was doing a bad job: “You think what the Biden administration is doing, rallying NATO allies, getting – ” Bolton cut her off: “It has failed....The President says it has failed.”
The frustrated host quickly rushed to defend the Democrat in the White House: “But it has not failed to rally the untied – the NATO allies, they’ve never been stronger....I was just in Munich and I can tell you that there was no space among those allies.”
Bolton provided a fact-check: “There’s plenty of space. Mario Draghi, the Prime Minister of Italy, said on Friday that if the EU had to impose economic sanctions, he hoped it would not include the energy sector. That’s a huge hole in NATO unity.”
The contentious exchange began with Bolton calling out Biden’s weak response to Russian aggression:
And we did not act appropriately early. I think we should have had more American forces in Ukraine, not to fight the Russians, but to train with the Ukrainians and to show those Russian generals looking across the border and seeing Americans within flags, “I wonder what that means?” Biden took that off the table, saying there would be no American forces involved and he got nothing for it.
Clearly Mitchell doesn’t want to hear one word of criticism about Biden but is happy to attack his Republican predecessor.
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Here is a transcript of the February 22 exchange:
12:13 PM ET
(...)
JOHN BOLTON: And we did not act appropriately early. I think we should have had more American forces in Ukraine, not to fight the Russians, but to train with the Ukrainians and to show those Russian generals looking across the border and seeing Americans within flags, “I wonder what that means?” Biden took that off the table, saying there would be no American forces involved and he got nothing for it.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Just to go back to the Trump years because you had difficulty –
BOLTON: Why not?
MITCHELL: Well, why not? Well, why not is because that’s when Ukraine became so politicized as part of an impeachment.
BOLTON: That’s exactly right.
MITCHELL: And as part of decisions and conversations. There was one call in particular, the so-called “perfect call” Trump had with, you know, Zelenskyy, which, you know, certainly telegraphed to the Kremlin that they could do what they wanted with Ukraine, that America would not stand up.
BOLTON: Well, I think Putin was undoubtedly waiting for a second Trump term, but he’s getting, effectively, almost what he would have expected then. This is going to be a victory for Russia.
MITCHELL: You think what the Biden administration is doing, rallying NATO allies, getting –
BOLTON: It has failed.
MITCHELL: I mean, truly, Ambassador –
BOLTON: The President says it has failed.
MITCHELL: But it has not failed to rally the untied – the NATO allies, they’ve never been stronger.
BOLTON: Mario Draghi –
MITCHELL: I was just in Munich and I can tell you that there was no space among those allies.
BOLTON: There’s plenty of space. Mario Draghi, the Prime Minister of Italy, said on Friday that if the EU had to impose economic sanctions, he hoped it would not include the energy sector. That’s a huge hole in NATO unity.
And as I say, what [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz has done today is only a paper maneuver that will last a couple months. We’ll see how long that lasts.
MITCHELL: Okay, I would just suggest that the Italian leader is not the key player here and what we’ve seen from France, from the U.K., from Germany, a new chancellor, has been to at least stand up and be united, you know, as a presence, as a NATO presence.
BOLTON: I’ll agree the U.K. is on our side.
MITCHELL: Okay, we agree on something. John Bolton, it’s a pleasure. Thank you very much for being with us.
