Speakers at the Republican National Convention say when it comes to foreign policy, Democratic nominee Joe Biden is weak but also more likely to go to war than President Trump.
It’s a consistent, if complicated, case for Trump and against Biden that has been laid out over the first three days of the GOP event and is expected to continue Thursday, as the president formally accepts renomination. Speakers have hailed Trump for eliminating the Islamic State, standing up to China and Iran, and also bringing troops home from war zones.
“In four years, Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars,” said former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Wednesday night. “He brought troops home. He rebuilt the military and signed peace deals that make Americans safer.”
“President Trump took decisive action against Iranian terrorist mastermind Qassem Soleimani — a man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq,” said Keith Kellogg, a national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. “President Trump challenged, and continues to challenge, an increasingly provocative and militant China.
“But make no mistake, President Trump is no hawk,” Kellogg added. “He wisely wields the sword when required but believes in seeking peace instead of perpetual conflict.” Unlike his opponents, Kellogg said, Trump kept his promises “to keep us out of needless conflicts and to pursue ending wars without end.”
“Compare President Trump with the disastrous record of Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, who consistently called for more war,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican. “Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war, which President Trump has long called the worst geopolitical mistake of our generation. I fear Biden will choose war again. He supported war in Serbia, Syria, and Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home.”
This may sit uneasily alongside frequent criticism of Biden as weak. “Obama and Biden let North Korea threaten America. President Trump rejected that weakness, and we passed the toughest sanctions on North Korea in history,” said former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. “Obama and Biden let Iran get away with murder and literally sent them a plane full of cash. President Trump did the right thing and ripped up the Iran nuclear deal.”
“This president has a record of strength and success,” Haley continued. “The former vice president has a record of weakness and failure.”
“Warmongers can be weak,” said a Republican strategist. Many GOP convention participants square the circle by citing the Reagan-era concept of “peace through strength.” Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, will argue Thursday night that Trump’s commitment to a stronger defense posture than Biden’s has kept the United States out of wars, according to a source familiar with his speech.
“No one who’s seen the face of war desires to see it again,” Cotton is expected to say.
“The cowering of Iran and the restoration of the deterrence once lost is the result of America believing in her own might again,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican.
The Democratic nominee’s weakness remains a major theme of Republican attacks. “History records that Joe Biden even opposed the operation that took down Osama Bin Laden,” Pence said in his acceptance speech, referring to the 9/11 mastermind. “Beijing Biden is so weak on China that the Intelligence Community recently assessed that the Chinese Communist Party favors Biden,” said Donald Trump Jr. “They know he’ll weaken us both economically and on the world stage.”
There’s a reason the former vice president’s nickname is “Beijing Biden,” not “Bomber Biden.” But ending endless wars is now as common an applause line at the convention as tough talk about the ayatollahs. Biden, like Clinton four years ago, is as likely to be hit for his vote for the Iraq War as his support for the Iran nuclear deal, a fact some critics find incongruous. Some Republicans who were skeptical of Trump’s foreign policy arguments during the 2016 primaries have come around.
This includes Grenell. “No candidate could bring themselves to admit that something had gone badly wrong with American foreign policy. That the American voter, the American soldier, and the American taxpayer, had all been let down,” he said in his speech decrying “warmongers” and “globalization fanatics.”
“Except for one — Donald Trump. He called America’s endless wars what they were: A disaster,” said Grenell.
A disaster Republicans now say Biden is more likely to continue.
