Secretary of State Antony Blinken expertly shut down Idaho Senator Jim Risch when he asked who in the White House has the power to "push the button" and shut off President Biden's mic. The exchange occurred during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where Risch insisted that someone had cut off the president's microphone during a press conference.
Risch asked:
"Look, we've all seen this; we saw it as recently as yesterday. Somebody in the White House has the authority to press the button and [...] cut off the president's speaking ability and sound. Who is that person?"
Blinken replied while appearing to try not to laugh:
"I think anyone who knows the President including members of this committee knows that he speaks very clearly and very deliberately for himself. No one else does."
Blinken elaborated:
"There is—there is no such person."
Again, the president speaks for himself. [He] makes all of his strategic decisions informed by the best advice he can get from the people around him."
View the exchange between Blinken and Risch below:
The first line of questioning to Secretary of State Antony Blinken from a Senate Republican during today's hearing is Jim Risch bizarrely grilling Blinken about who in the White House has authority to "push the button" & cut off President Biden's mic. Blinken insists nobody doespic.twitter.com/kWTmitvOXE— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1631631511
Outlets like Fox News have latched on to the idea that someone is censoring the President's speeches and run with it, reporting that someone in the White House is preventing him from speaking. They reported that someone had cut the feed during President Biden's briefing on wildfires in Boise, Idaho on Monday.
"This isn't the first time the White House intervened in blocking Biden from being heard by the general public."
Fox News maintained that someone was attempting to censor the president before he could deviate from what he was told to say.
CNN's Daniel Dale broke down what actually happened on Twitter.
Prompted by a Republican National Committee tweet, right-wing media covered this like the White House was nervously censoring Biden as he went off script. In fact, as you've probably seen, it's entirely normal for the press to be ushered out/the cam to be shut off mid-meeting.— Daniel Dale (@Daniel Dale) 1631633166
Others chimed in with what's really behind the false Fox News reporting:
Here\u2019s what happens. A conspiracy gets floated by a right winger seeking clicks, usually from a monetized grift account. It\u2019s gets spread around their echo chamber. Then a member of Congress talks about it as being a \u201cwidely reported\u201d fact. It\u2019s debunked. Then on to the next.— Ron Filipkowski (@Ron Filipkowski) 1631635381
They are trying to say Biden was going off script in a senior moment of delusion and was cut off. It was, in fact, most likely an audio malfunction because he was benignly answering a simple question. What a waste of 7 minutes.— Mombity at Large (@Mombity at Large) 1631632812
And slammed Risch for being essentially a right-wing troll.
\u201cWidely reported in the media\u201d senator Risch, that one Facebook group you belong to does not count as wide media reporting— David Burge \ud83d\udd34\u26ab\ufe0f\u26aa\ufe0f\ud83d\udfe2 (@David Burge \ud83d\udd34\u26ab\ufe0f\u26aa\ufe0f\ud83d\udfe2) 1631631933
Others were simply confused by why Risch chose to bring this up during this particular hearing, which was supposed to be about the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan.
What a strange line of questioning from Risch, and what does this have to do with Afghanistan?\n\nThat's why these hearings are often worthless; just a lot of grandstanding from at least one or more people.— Bobby Martin (@Bobby Martin) 1631632051
Blinken is wasting his time being there if this is how 'serious' they're taking the hearing about the military withdrawal from Afghanistan.— Phillip Davis (@Phillip Davis) 1631631944
Quite the demonstration of how the poison of right-wing lies gets spread from bonkers conspiracy theory to Fox News feeding frenzy all the way up to being validated by a U.S. Senator.
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David Cohen