WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today spoke with MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson to discuss his regaining the committee’s Chairmanship and his expectations for President Joe Biden’s scheduled foreign policy speech at the State Department this afternoon. Chairman Menendez also discussed Russia’s sentencing of opposition figure Aleksey Navalny and Canada’s recent designation of the Proud Boys as a terrorist entity.
“I think what we could expect from President Biden is first of all a commitment to restore the State Department – the morale in the personnel and experience at the State Department, which had been decimated under the Trump administration,” Menendez said. “I think you'll hear a call for America to engage in the world – not to go it alone – and to have allies in common cause. And that will include both confronting and competing against China, and it will include – I believe – messages as it relates to Russia, certainly with the re-imprisonment of Mr. Navalny, and their interference in our own elections, with the bounty on American troops, just to mention a few.”
On confronting Kremlin aggression: “The sooner that we send Putin a message that he cannot with impunity violate the international order, the better off we, and the world, will be... He only understands strength, and that’s why I believe that the Biden administration will have – and hopefully sooner rather than later – a forceful response.”
On Canada’s terrorist designation of Proud Boys: “When our neighbor to the north looks over the border and looks at the Proud Boys, they said that is a terrorist organization.. I think [the U.S. government] has to speak with the same clarity. I hope [DHS] will say very clearly who are the domestic terror organization operating within the U.S. and designate them as such.”
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