While establishment Republicans have come out Tuesday to support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Democrat delegation to Taiwan, former President Donald Trump is warning it is unnecessarily asking for "trouble."
"Why is Crazy Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan," Trump posted to Truth Social. "Always causing trouble. Nothing she does turns out well (two failed impeachments, loss of House, etc.). WATCH!"
Amid Pelosi's trip, China is conducting military exercises around Taiwan in a sign of potential escalation of tensions.
But 25 Republicans backing Trump rival Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have come out to "support" Pelosi's Democrat-only delegation.
Trump's remarks also fly against the state position of his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said this weekend the Trump administration sent delegations to Taiwan without issue.
"For four years we didn't see this kind of thing happen," he said. "We had American officials travel to Taiwan. We conducted navigation through the Straits of Taiwan during our four years, many, many times.
"The Chinese never threatened to shoot down an American plane. While they would make claims, they would say hostile things, we were always confident that they understood that America was serious and shows real resolve in defending the American people."
But Pompeo still implored Pelosi to stick to her desire to visit Taiwan because backing down amid a Chinese threat would show further weakness.
"The world has an expectation she wanted to go there," Pompeo said. "She had planned to go there. To the extent that plan changes now to what it was – that's a really, really risky thing.
China's "playing with fire" threat to the Biden administration showed a lack of "respect" for America and President Joe Biden.
"I think they don't have that same fear; I don't think they have that same respect for American presidency that they had just 18, 19 months ago now," he said. "That presents an awful lot of risk to the United States of America."
Pompeo blamed Biden for bowing to China's threat.
"I don't agree with Speaker Pelosi very often, but she made it clear that she wanted to go visit, on her own, to visit Taiwan, an independent, sovereign nation," Pompeo said. "Now, the Biden administration is saying, 'Well, maybe that's not smart.'"
"To allow America to be bullied by Chinese propaganda – right after, frankly, President Biden's had a phone call, a long phone call with Xi Jinping," Pompeo continued, "would send a really bad message to our friends in the region – the Australians, the South Koreans, the Japanese.
"But mostly, it would tell the American people that it's OK if the United States permitted a communist party a long ways away to dictate how Americans will behave, where we will travel, the things we will say."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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