Diplomacy is back, baby.
President Joe Biden “literally” had no idea Washington’s secretive nuclear technology pact with the United Kingdom and Australia created a diplomatic row with France, according to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.
In fact, Kerry alleged this week in an interview with the French news channel BFM TV he personally had to bring the president up to speed on the diplomatic fiasco that saw the French government recalling its ambassadors to the United States for the first time in history.
His remarks, which were flagged Tuesday by National Review’s Jim Geraghty, came amid a larger conversation about America’s long-standing relationship with France.
Kerry was asked by his interviewer to address the critics who say France’s exclusion from the nuclear pact is a betrayal of its friendship with the U.S. Kerry was also asked what he says to reassure the French people of the strength of France’s relationship with the U.S.
The finalized version of the nuclear pact was not a betrayal, Kerry responded. Rather, he added, it was merely a lack of proper communication, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken already made clear.
“President Biden asked me about it, and I told him, and expressed—” Kerry said, when the interviewer, surprised, interrupted him.
“You told Joe Biden that it was not right?”
“He asked me,” Kerry said. “He said, ‘What’s the situation?’ and I explained exactly—he had not been aware of that. He literally, literally had not been aware of what had transpired.”
If he’s telling the truth, it means the president of the United States had no idea France, one of America’s oldest allies, was incensed after it learned it was excluded from the U.S.’s nuclear technology deal. And not just a little angry. France was so angry, in fact, it recalled its ambassadors to the U.S., an unprecedented and not-at-all-subtle act clearly expressing outrage and extreme disappointment.
And Biden apparently didn’t know about any of this? It took a briefing from his climate envoy to make him aware of the situation on the other side of the Atlantic?
“I don’t want to go into the details of it,” Kerry continued, “but suffice it to say that the president — my president is very committed to strengthening the relationship and making sure that this is a small event of the past and moving on to the much more important future.”
So, who is actually in charge over there in the Oval Office? Because a growing number of anecdotes suggest Biden is either routinely out of the loop or being keyed into important foreign and domestic events long after the fact.
