Ex-Trump Chief of Staff Defends Biden’s Iran Response Amid Fierce Republican Criticism
Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney defended President Joe Biden on Friday as a slew of Republicans criticized his military response against Iran-supported forces as being too slow.
On Sunday, Iranian proxies in Syria killed three U.S. service members in a drone strike at a military installation in Jordan. Republicans called on Biden to hit back sooner rather than later. The retaliation came on Friday when the U.S. hit 85 Iran-linked targets in Syria and Jordan. The strikes did little to assuage Republicans, who said the president took too long to respond and perhaps even telegraphed the bombings.
According to the Department of Defense, Iran-backed forces attacked U.S. military interests in the region more than 150 times since the beginning of October.
Mulvaney said that Biden can be criticized on several fronts, but Friday’s response is not one of them.
“You could be critical of whole a bunch of different things,” he said. “You could do a whole litany of them. But at the same time, what’s wrong with waiting to have an opinion on this?”
He added:
Why can’t we just say, ok, look, we wanted President Biden – everybody wanted President Biden – to do something. He did something. It seems to be relatively effective tonight. I mean, it’s 85 targets and 125 munitions. That’s a big deal. So why don’t we just say, ok, this is fine. Let’s see what happens next.
Again, they’re two different things. You can be critical of what’s happened in the past and still look at this tonight and say, ok, I think this might be a good first step. But let’s look– why can’t– why do you always have to be either for the president or against the president? That’s what I don’t understand.
Watch above via NewsNation.
