Fox personalities blame Joe Biden, not Republican senators, for vacant positions that require Senate approval

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

While Fox News personalities have blamed the Biden administration for key diplomatic and military vacancies, news outlets have reported that many key vacancies are due to Republican actions in the Senate, particularly Sen. Tommy Tuberville's widespread holds over the Pentagon's abortion policy. Biden has nominated Jack Lew, formerly Treasury secretary under President Obama, to be ambassador to Israel; before Hamas' recent attacks many Republican senators made clear they would be opposed to quickly advancing Lew's nomination.

Politico reports about new Democratic efforts to quickly confirm members of Biden's team:

Pentagon officials who briefed senators Tuesday on the Israel crisis emphasized nine senior military positions in the command responsible for the Middle East that are facing disruptions due to Tuberville’s holds, according to a person familiar with the unclassified call, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. Officials also pushed for the nominees for ambassador to Israel, Egypt and Lebanon to be confirmed.

Tuberville said on Sunday he isn’t backing off his hold despite America’s closest ally in the Middle East going to war, insisting Democrats confirm each nomination individually until the Pentagon drops its policy of reimbursing troops their travel costs to obtain abortions.

NBC News also reports that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)  “has been holding up several Middle East nominations” and “raised concerns about Lew specifically.” Cruz argues that “it was becoming impossible to expeditiously advance Biden administration nominees because those nominees keep lying.”

From the October 11, 2023, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (FOX CO-HOST): The Wall Street Journal editorial board yesterday to that point said it best. If you could say what's happening in one sentence around the world, here it is: "It's the latest installment in the unraveling of the global order as American political will and military primacy are called into question."

EMILY COMPAGNO (FOX CO-HOST): And they're called into question because as Sean just articulated, it's because of the Biden administration and the Obama administration before it. There are very specific things that we have seen as a result of their policies and their inactions and their failures, the consequences of which we are now seeing.

So, as I mentioned yesterday, let's underscore, cause I think it's so important, how many positions that should be – that should hold Senate confirmed top-elected officials are open right now, that are vacant. We do not have an ambassador to Israel or to Egypt or to Oman or to Kuwait. We are missing a delegate to the U.S.A.I.D. We are missing so many top-level, again, Senate-confirmed positions that at this time, to Sean's point, would represent the response readiness and the strength and the capability that we now do not have.

When you layer that on top of lack of a speaker, when you layer that on top of a totally incompetent president that has displayed at every juncture and opportunity an unwillingness or an inability to articulate a condemnation of Iran or a full support of Israel, an open border, a priority of climate change, a capitulation to the far left. Those are the things that the world has looked at, and it is why under his watch Putin invaded Ukraine. It is why China will likely invade Taiwan next and, most importantly in this conversation now, why I am fearful that Hezbollah is now invading in that direction from Lebanon to Israel as we are now holding reports.

I also want to point out that the Washington Post reported that many of the terrorists, according to Arab intelligence, that – excuse me, many of the hostages were taken by freelance looters and thugs rather than Hamas fighters. So finding where they're hidden will be difficult and dangerous on top of the already unacceptable and unfathomable hostage situation that Hamas has now undergone as well. So when we talk about the hostage negotiations or the like, how do you negotiate with a terrorist? How do you negotiate with animals? How do you negotiate with monsters that now seem to potentially not even answer to Iran and their purse strings?

HARRIS FAULKNER (FOX CO-HOST): You kill them. That's what you do.

SEAN DUFFY (FOX CONTRIBUTOR): Joe Biden is not focused on bringing the smartest people into these Senate-confirmed positions that you just mentioned. He is concerned about what is your sexual preference? Are you trying to change your gender? What's your color? And in these situations you see, you want the smartest people, the most well-informed with the most experience giving advice to the president. We don't have that, because Joe Biden hasn't cared about that. 

MCENANY: He should be solely focused on people who have the strength to ensure that babies across the globe are not slaughtered as we're seeing.