Nothing warms my NewsHounds heart like a Democrat acing a Fox News appearance and, as a bonus, tearing apart Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
I’m not sure what, if anything, to read into the fact that this weekend’s Fox News Sunday followed its interview with Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley with an interview that began by inviting a Democrat to attack Haley.
Host Shannon Bream's opening to her discussion with Auchincloss (D-MA) revealed the Fox producers surely knew they'd be getting a robust attack on Haley from him:
BREAM: With the president's approval sagging, a growing number of Democratic lawmakers are stepping into the 2024 debate to defend Biden against the Republicans hoping to beat him. One relative newcomer here in Washington has begun to make a name for himself, calling out GOP candidates, including my previous guest, one-time Governor Nikki Haley.
Bream's first question asked Auchincloss to comment on Haley’s claim that the U.S. military has fallen behind China’s in many ways. Haley had trotted out what was surely a pre-prepared remark: “They have started developing hypersonic missiles. We are just now getting started. They are modernizing their military. Our military is taking gender pronoun classes."
Auchincloss couldn’t have slapped Haley down any better.
AUCHINCLOSS: Her commentary is all hat and no cattle. First of all, as a Marine veteran, I think it's outrageous that she's saying that the Chinese military is stronger than the United States military. She should know better as someone who was governor of South Carolina, home of Paris Island, the crucible of U.S. Marines. I doubt she would walk onto Paris Island and tell Marine recruits that they're joining the second-best military in the world. So –
BREAM: But when it comes to things like weaponry or those kinds of advances or a bigger Navy, those kinds of things, equipment, I mean is that a valid critique?
AUCHINCLOSS: We, of course, need to invest in military strength. And the U.S. Marine Crop has pivoted to the Indo-Pacific for force redesign. 2030 - Army, Navy following suit. But we have to think holistically. And to use her own term, we have to think critically, creatively and courageously. And she's failing her own test here.
First of all, critically. She is just using partisan talking points to hit President Biden's foreign policy without actually engaging on the substance. So, when Joe Biden took office, he didn't throw out the Abraham Accords because Donald Trump had negotiated them. He didn't throw out the 301 tariffs on China because Donald Trump had imposed them. No, he engaged with the substance of the policy and persisted on things that were working.
Nikki Haley is coming in there without actually offering what she might keep or improve upon. She's just kind of throwing out barbs to do it.
Number two, creatively. She's talking about cutting R&D funding for the United States, which is a sure-fire way for us to not out-compete the scientific and economic behemoth that is China.
And then finally, and this is the most one to me, is -- is courage. She was the U.N. ambassador when Donald Trump went to Helsinki in 2018, gave a press conference standing next to Vladimir Putin that both former GOP presidential nominees called, quote, disgraceful. She said nothing. And without courage, no other virtues can be made possible.
What Auchincloss did so nicely here was a) to immediately go on offense instead of defending anything; b) work in a lot of strong praise for President Biden; and c) to quickly move on to reframe and expand his attack on Haley.
The discussion moved on to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China, then assistance to Ukraine. Auchincloss blasted the Republicans for cutting half a billion dollars in aid to Ukraine and worked in another attack on Haley while he was at it.
AUCHINCLOSS: Think about the message that sends to our allies fighting on the front lines of the free world. Nikki Haley says nothing about it. I know she claims that she's, oh, we should support Ukraine. The real test is whether you're willing to stand up to your own party and say, you are wrong.
Then it was on to Afghanistan.
Bream suggested that the State Department had given a pass to the Biden administration because its recent after-action report on the withdrawal from Afghanistan only had a “passing mention” of the U.S. turning over Bagram Air Base. Noting that Auchincloss had served in Afghanistan, Bream asked if there was enough in the report to “help us not to make these same mistakes?”
Auchincloss handled this adroitly, too. He acknowledged the concern about Bagram Air Base is legitimate, but reframed this part of the discussion into a bold defense of Biden:
AUCHINCLOSS: I agree that we're going to need to investigate decisions around Bagram Air Base.
Having said that, bigger mistake here would have been to keep troops in Afghanistan for another decade, another trillion dollars, more lives lost, for a war that could not be won because we had no nation-building partner in Kabul.
Notice how Bream tried - and failed - to get Auchincloss to criticize the Biden administration. Instead, Auchincloss turned what he had just acknowledged was an issue into kudos for Biden:
BREAM: But do you agree that the way the withdrawal happened, the timing of it, there have been critics all over the political spectrum who have said that did not need to happen the way that it did and it cost us 13 service members.
AUCHINCLOSS: There is no right way to end a failed war. President Biden had the moral courage to tell the American people that our resources and strategic focus was best used in the Indo-Pacific to take on China. And in any of - in any accelerated timeline.
And I agree that - that there was not enough intelligence assessment about how fast the Afghan government was going to fall, because I don't think even we realized just how broken their political institutions were. But the - the core decision was the right one strategically, which was, to get out of a war that could not be won and to focus on our true geostrategic threat.
Well done, sir!
The only thing more satisfying would have been to confront and call out Fox News’ lies and blatant propaganda. But I think that is the job for a pundit or analyst, not an elected representative.
Regular readers know I am an adamant believer that Democrats and progressives must go on Fox News to aggressively confront and combat its poisonous propaganda (the key word there is “aggressively”).
Whether you agree with me on that or not (I know it’s a minority position), you can ease back into the workweek with this enjoyable interview below, from the July 2, 2023 Fox News Sunday.
- Current President and Chairman Pete Buttegieg