On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that while there’s no good excuse for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin not informing the White House about his health issues, “Republicans, they’re going to make hay out of this.” And “we also have to factor in that the Republicans are trying to gum up whatever the president does and we probably wouldn’t be able to appoint a new Secretary of Defense.”
After saying that President Joe Biden should consider firing Austin and there’s no good explanation for Austin’s conduct, Smith stated, “I do also want to say that the Republicans, they’re going to make hay out of this. They’re going to try to turn it — they took four years to figure out Benghazi because they wanted to sort of cause problems for Hillary Clinton more than they wanted to get answers. So, what I’m trying to do is get answers and have a straightforward approach to this, not to politicize it. But I think in the short term we’re going to need to hear from the President, what was the explanation he got from Secretary Austin, is he satisfied with that? Because I do want to circle back to two points: One, Secretary Austin’s doing a great job as Secretary of Defense. Number two, this is an enormously important time in our country. And as far as the resignation talk is concerned, we also have to factor in that the Republicans are trying to gum up whatever the president does and we probably wouldn’t be able to appoint a new Secretary of Defense. All of those things need to be factored in here. That’s a conversation the President and the Secretary need to have and the President needs to be confident in his Secretary of Defense.”
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