Congressman on Biden: 'We are a nation of lions, and we're being led by a sheep'

A Texas congressman and military veteran is offering harsh words for President Joe Biden's stewardship of the Ukraine crisis, saying inaction, equivocation and incompetence have shaken America's normally strong standing on the world stage with U.S. allies and adversaries alike.

"We are a nation of lions, and we're being led by a sheep," Rep Brian Babin (R-Texas) told the "Just the News" TV show Tuesday night on Real America's Voice. "We have lost all credibility with our allies and our adversaries."

Babin and his family have a long history of service. The congressman, a dentist, served as an airborne artilleryman in the Texas Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve and later was commissioned as a captain in the Air Force,  stationed at Ramstein, Germany. His son is a Navy SEAL.

Babin said the Biden administration's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer followed by its slow, unsteady reaction to Russia's aggression against Ukraine has harmed the projection of America's soft power on the global stage and limited its options in a European conflict that has put the world on edge.

"We missed the boat long ago, especially with our just dismal withdrawal from Afghanistan," he said. "We projected nothing but weakness."

Babin strongly criticized the president for failing to impose sanctions blocking Russian oil imports to the United States, joining a bipartisan chorus. Some lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are trying to get legislation to impose such sanctions, but thus far have been unable to get enough support in Congress.

"The president keeps talking about these major sanctions he's going to hit Russia with, and yet the sanctions he's he's hit them with don't even pertain to their oil and gas," Babin said. "We're continuing to buy millions and millions of gallons of Russian oil because he has cut off the spigot of American production."

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) agreed, telling Just the News that Biden put himself in a bind by closing down the U.S.-based Keystone pipeline and slowing drilling offshore, leaving America hopelessly reliant on Russian and Middle East oil.

"We're funding Putin's war, with the nearly 600,000 barrels of gas and oil that we're importing from Russia, every single day, while we shut down the Keystone pipeline," she said. "We don't explore responsible safe gas drilling in New York state, where there's an abundant supply that we're not allowed to touch. ... So it's a disaster from end to end."

Tenney, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Biden's policies also managed to push Vladimir Putin into China's arms, forging a partnership in recent weeks that had not been possible for decades.

"What could be worse than China teaming up with Putin?" she asked. "And you've now heard the reports that the Biden administration actually hoped to go to China to get some assistance with Putin. And the intent was that we thought with all the troops amassing on the border that China would would help us in that endeavor.

"And what did China do? They shared our intelligence with Putin. And we also learned from that, as I'm sure many news accounts have shown, that the Chinese coordinated with Putin and asked Putin not to invade Ukraine until after the Olympics were over, because of optics."