Jake Sullivan is President Biden’s National Security Adviser. He sat down this morning for an interview on Meet the Press. I found his answers, presentation and clear thinking to be very reassuring in a time of international crisis and nuclear bluster. I recommend listening to the full interview.
Jake Sullivan on MTP
Published
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Todd doesn’t even try to hide that he gets the questions he asks from the Biden Administration.
He starts right out with “sham referendums” and goes on to ask questions that are little more than DNC talking points.
Even more disgusting is the lip service to Iran’s women while at the same time negotiating lifting sanctions on Iran and reinstating the failed nuclear deal.
Mahsa Amini was murdered for letting strangers see her hair.
You don’t make deals with governments that do that.
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Well, thanks for watching.
I think your comments about Todd’s questions are overblown. They are “sham referendums” and pretending otherwise is dishonest. I thought Todd’s questions were direct and tough and in no way partisan.
Diplomacy with Iran is not simple. And the death of Amini is an absolute disgrace. Lots of people in Iran seem to know that too. As the aphorism goes you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends. Breaking off all contacts and dealings with Iran will not help anybody.
Interesting how much weight you put on this individual travesty while ignoring a non-stop string of such atrocities by Putin over many years capped off by his criminal war that has killed tens of thousands. I guess you just cut champions of European Civilization a lot more slack than you do Muslims.
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Do you deny that Todd’s interview questions were obviously prearranged?
Would the same arrangement be acceptable if the interview were with Trump?
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Your memory is short. FOX did this crap for 4 years when it wasn’t actively campaigning for Trump.
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“ You don’t make deals with governments that do that.”
We have made deals with governments that do a lot worse. We are a staunch ally of the Saudis. So much so that they favored the Trump kids with a few billion. And yet they kill with impunity. A recent president was sending love letters to Kim, the N. Korean murdering god.
We should be an ally with Iran more than most Mideast regimes, but we screwed that up decades ago.
And favoring a deal with Putin to take whatever he wants because he says it’s his anyway…hypocritical and disingenuous to say the least.
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RE: “I recommend listening to the full interview.”
I did. What a waste of time! If Jake Sullivan is Joe Biden’t brain, then we are sleepwalking into nuclear war.
One thing Sullivan said stands out. He admitted that economic sanctions have little effect on Russia. But if that’s true, why would he be in favor of more sanctions?
The sentiment is illogical, suggesting that the U.S. and EU administrations lack the capacity to deal with the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s decision to hold secession referenda and simultaneously begin a mobilization of its reserve forces signals an opportunity to end the war diplomatically. Although the terms may not be to ours or Europe’s liking — the loss of four oblasts, the most economically valuable territory in Ukraine — we should accept them and negotiate for peace.
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Based on the reactions offered by Dr. Tabor and Mr. Roberts to the Jake Sullivan interview I have just watched it again. My conclusion is that neither of them is capable of any kind of objectivity. It is all out hatred 100% of the time.
There was not a single question that was remotely close to a DNC talking point. Todd tried to pin Sullivan down with some very tough questions and challenged his answers and U.S. policy on several points.
The attack by Mr. Roberts on the intellect of Mr. Sullivan is without a shred of evidence. It is a stupid attack typical of stupid people. Jackson was asked tough questions of great import and answered them with a brilliant mix of facts, directness and diplomatic restraint. That is evidence of a very capable mind not of some sort of dummy.
Mr. Jackson did NOT “admit that economic sanctions have little effect on Russia.” Mr. Roberts either dreamed it or maybe did not understand what the Ukraine PM (not Sullivan) had to say which was the Ukraine would like there to be even more severe sanctions.
Both Dr. Tabor and Mr. Roberts favor a policy of appeasement – undercutting Ukraine, letting Russia have its way, and hope that this is the end of his territorial ambitions. Fine. That is a legitimate point of view. However, it does not justify the sliming of Todd and Sullivan that is the go to response of such people to just about everything they disagree with.
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Whoops – any reference to Jackson is a reference to Sullivan.
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RE: “The attack by Mr. Roberts on the intellect of Mr. Sullivan is without a shred of evidence.”
I gave both the assertion and the substantiation in my comment. But to elaborate: Sullivan responds to a question about the effects of labelling Russia a terrorist nation at about the 8:00 minute mark. “So this is just a matter of a particular tool and the degree to which the upside of it outweighs the downside, which is that it does tie the United State’s hands and reduces our flexibility without adding a whole lot of economic pressure to Russia.”
I read that statement as an admission that economic sanctions associated with the terrorist label wouldn’t accomplish much. Sullivan goes on to say that “we need to continue to amp the pressure on Russia economically.”
In other words, Sullivan makes the contradictory claim that one sort of economic sanctions are ineffective, whereas other economic sanctions are needed. I made no attack on Sullivan’s intellect. I question his sanity.
RE: “Both Dr. Tabor and Mr. Roberts favor a policy of appeasement…”
Not so. It is not appeasement to recognize that — through utter incompetence — we have squandered the diplomatic opportunities that once existed, and must now face the ones that remain.
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You have not understood what you have heard.
Mr. Sullivan’s answer amounted to this:
And, making that designation triggers legal constraints on what the President can do, so
It would reduce the President’s flexibility in managing the sanctions to be applied.
Clear enough if you really try to understand. The “insanity” is all yours. 100%.
As for “appeasement” – that is exactly what you have been advocating. Let the criminal aggressor Russia have its way because Putin has nuclear weapons is the essence of what you have been saying since the war began. Classic “Peace for our time” appeasement.
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RE: “Let the criminal aggressor Russia have its way because Putin has nuclear weapons is the essence of what you have been saying since the war began.”
You have not understood my position. I have opposed US/Nato involvement in the war on moral grounds. Our policy is to effect regime change in Russia and we are using the Ukrainian people to cause it.
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“I have opposed US/Nato involvement in the war on moral grounds.”
Maybe, but you have referred to the risk of nuclear war is being the reason that “Stumble Joe” is foolish to oppose Putin. Many, many times. That is textbook appeasement.
Besides that, we did not start this war. We are not using anybody. We are helping people defend themselves because they have asked for that help.
Your claim of “moral grounds” rings hollow coming from a Putin defender.
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“Our policy is to effect regime change in Russia and we are using the Ukrainian people to cause it”
How is that possible if it was RUSSIA that invaded Ukraine?
Putin was presented with an agreement PRIOR to the invasion and he turned it down. He WANTED to invade Ukraine and wipe it form the map. By saying that we should allow it IS appeasement.
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“Do you deny that Todd’s interview questions were obviously prearranged?”
Obviously they were not “pre-arranged” other than Todd planning with his producer where he would go with the interview so they could cue appropriate video clips. The topics to be discussed needed no pre-arrangement. They were all very current and very much in the purview of the National Security Adviser.
There was no sign of any pre-arrangements in the interview. I will believe my lyin’ eyes and not your hateful partisan fantasies.
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