Secretary of State Antony Blinken should be traveling throughout Europe trying to get countries to put pressure on Russia over its invasion and continuing attacks on Ukraine, but he has not being "very active," former Ambassador and acting National Intelligence Director Ric Grenell said Tuesday on Newsmax.
"I am a diplomat," Grenell told "John Bachman Now." "I always see a path for diplomacy, even when the bombs are about to go off."
Blinken, he continued, should be having meetings and employing diplomatic processes all over Europe, but "I just don't see him being very active."
Grenell said he is happy that talks are continuing in the Russia-Ukraine situation, and cautioned that people should remember that press releases or statements tell only half the story.
"Hopefully, smart diplomats are talking privately and saying one thing privately about what they really want to happen and then being very general in their public statements," Grenell said.
"The last thing you need right now is having the media or the public talking about the details before you can get a deal done … good diplomacy means that you don't get everything. But if you have really good negotiators, then you can represent your side pretty well."
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has opened many questions about the United States' lack of energy independence under President Joe Biden, and Grenell pointed out that maintaining control over oil and other energy sources is one of the reasons to go to war.
"You look at the stance of Germany for 16 years under Chancellor [Angela] Merkel, and they cozied up to the Russians," Grenell said. "As soon as Merkel was gone, and the new government came in, they said, no more. We've got to pay our NATO obligations. We've got to be a strong western ally and we got to stop buying this energy from Russia."
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin's reputation is "ruined" over the invasion, Grenell said.
"I don't think any country is going to want to do business with him," he said. "The lesson for America is that the four years of Donald Trump when we were able to produce energy for ourselves and become an energy exporter, that's when we really saw peace."
Grenell said if Americans are tired of seeing gas prices skyrocketing, then "you better be advocating for America and our politicians to find energy sources here in the United States and not buying it from somewhere else."
Meanwhile, there is a "vacuum" in place because of Biden's leadership, said Grenell, and he is concerned that countries may look for other partners like China or Russia, and that means America is facing a "crisis."
"Joe Biden is totally failing," Grenell said. "This is not just a partisan statement. You look at all the polls and his numbers are the lowest ever and now we've got inflation going through the roof. Gas prices. All of this is because Joe Biden abandoned Donald Trump's idea of putting America first and instead really allowed the Europeans to veto some of our policies."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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