Foreign Affairs Chairman Explains GOP Shenanigans: Republicans Were ‘Yelling and Screaming, Trying to Get a Sound Bite for Television’ at Blinken Hearing
"It was more of just the yelling and screaming and trying to get a sound bite for television," Meeks says
Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee displayed a distinct lack of comity and decorum this week at the first congressional hearing called on US policy towards Afghanistan and the subsequent withdrawal.
But the Republicans were behaving badly for a very particular reason, according to the Democratic chairman of the panel.
The hearing, held Monday, featured questioning of Secretary of State Antony Blinken — but quickly devolved into an episode of literal raised voices and finger-pointing on the part of the Republicans in the minority.
President Biden and his administration endured weeks of political drubbing over their supervision of the withdrawal of US forces and one of the largest airlift operations in history, as more than 120,000 US American and Afghan citizens were evacuated to safety.
In his appearance Monday, Blinken attempted to defend the administration and put its actions in a broader context.
Biden withdrew from Afghanistan after US forces had remained there for nearly 20 years — and following a peace agreement arranged last year between the previous Trump administration and the Taliban.
“Yeah, I think that if you listen to the answers that Secretary Blinken gave and if you listen to the questions that most of the Democrats ask, it was laying the foundations of what the realities were on the ground and why certain decisions were made when they were made or were not made at any given time,” said Rep Greg Meeks (D-NY), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Unfortunately, on the Republican side it was more of just the yelling and screaming and trying to get a sound bite for television, as opposed to dealing with the facts and the circumstances of what has led up to where we are today.
“And you cannot make an analysis of where we are today without looking at the entire 20 years. And so, on our committee we are going to do complete oversight,” Meeks added.
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