National Public Radio broadcast 10 minutes of an interview on Wednesday with Secretary Antony Blinken. Morning Edition. We pointed out a year ago that NPR’s approach was night and day on Trump’s top diplomat Mike Pompeo versus Biden’s man Blinken. Anchor Steve Inskeep asked a few bland questions, and Blinken answered for several minutes without interruption. You can see some of it on YouTube
The first question he asked was, “Does it make sense to be ready for the inevitable destruction of cities in Ukraine?”
This part was not on YouTube. At about the eight-minute mark in the NPR segment, Inskeep began worrying out loud about how the government would need to “counter” Russian propaganda on American television (let’s guess he means Tucker Carlson):
INSKEEP – What is America’s plan, if anything? Do you have counter voices in your home that repeat the same Russian talk points over and again on television?
BLINKEN: Well, Steve, happily, in my job I don’t do politics. I certainly don’t do domestic politics.
But what we have seen is this – or at least what I’ve seen is this. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to members of Congress. There’s incredibly strong bipartisan support for this effort, the effort to support Ukraine, the effort to punish Russia for what it’s doing and put pressure on it.
The gathering of bipartisan support for Ukraine by the US is called “domestic political” (about foreign strategy), and it seems a little strange to claim that a Secretary or State does not do politics. Blinken has given interviews to NPR and other liberal outlets as part of his “domestic” politics. Inskeep repeated the question about pro-Putin pokes in both the media and within the GOP.
INSKEEP: You don’t need to worry about the wing of the Republican Party that has been openly sympathetic to Putin over the years?
BLINKEN: Again, I don’t do politics at home.
INSKEEP: Understood.
That’s funny, Time magazine under (future Obama State Department aide) Richard Stengel made Putin their “Man of the Year” in 2007, saying he was not a good guy, but had done “extraordinary things,” and “that’s why Russians adore him.”
PS. Blinken also spoke out about Fox News staff members who died on the job in Ukraine.
We’re also seeing journalists in the crossfire, people doing their jobs to bring the truth to the world. We’ve seen a Fox team that was – had two of its members killed, one injured, someone I know very well. Ben Hall is the one. He’s someone who travels with me when I travel around the world, someone I have great affection for, who’s a Incredible reporter, who always asks tough questions wherever we travel. I’m very much hoping and praying that he’ll be back on the job as soon as possible, but meanwhile two of his colleagues lost their lives in this attack, and another very prominent filmmaker lost his life just the other day.
Hall seems to be fine and has now left Ukraine. But it’s obvious that NPR and Inskeep are not the kind of media outfit who ask Blinken a lot of tough questions. When the executive branches are controlled by Democrats, it sounds like state radio.
About Post Author
