President Joe Biden is offering "empty rhetoric" and won't likely take action on the sanctions he threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with in the event Russia invades Ukraine, Rep. Ralph Norman said on Newsmax Wednesday.
"I'd like to see what sanctions he's talking about," the South Carolina Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "He's the one that gave Putin 17 areas not to invade on outside with cybersecurity attacks … but you know, time will tell. But judging from his past, I don't think we'll see anything from it."
Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops at the Ukraine border, something that never happened under former President Donald Trump because they knew he'd "take action and his words meant something," said Norman.
"I don't think [Biden] has the capacity or the stick-to-it-ness to do anything," said Norman. "It takes time to assemble troops or to assemble any type of reaction from the United States. You can't do that overnight, and to my knowledge, this president hasn't done anything. Judging from what he did in Afghanistan, he doesn't have the interest to make sure Americans are safe … so I doubt he does [anything] with Ukraine now."
Meanwhile, reports that China wants to build a military base in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa are concerning, said Norman, especially since Biden is acting weak.
"You look at the hypersonic missile that China has tested over 100 times," he said. "Our intelligence didn't pick it up until a month after the fact. Look at the electricity grid that's at risk. The dictators and the leaders around the world see this president as weak. They see he is not doing anything … he may talk a tough game, but he's not going to do anything."
Taiwan, he added, has been a friend of the United States for years, so it "will be interesting to see if [Biden's] response to China will be the same as it's been for Russia. To my knowledge, nothing has been done nor is there anything on the horizon."
Norman also discussed the House's vote Tuesday approving $770 billion with the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, noting he voted against it because it contains "so many bad things."
"Things like drafting your daughters, they took that out, but it's still got the vaccine mandate for troops."
Nobody could argue against adding pay raises for the troops, Norman added, but "there was more bad than good in that bill, and I don't think it should have passed, and I think we should have gone back to the drawing table to see how we could improve it even more."
Vaccines, however, should have been left up to individual members of the military, because many courts are rejecting mandates and the government itself has been eliminating them for different categories, such as people coming across the border.
"It's a disconnection that that American people don't understand, nor do they agree with," said Norman. "[Biden is] going to push it regardless of what the courts do, but I'm encouraged that the courts more and more are turning it down, and I'm encouraged that more and more states have taken a position they're going to sue to maintain the freedom and the liberty which we deserve."
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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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