In Days Before Ukraine Invasion, CNS Touted Putin’s Strength, Mocked Biden’s Alleged Weakness

Just as CNSNews.com has rooted for Vladimir Putin over President Biden in the past, it continued that un-American attitude in the days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, repeatedly touting Putin’s strength and attacking Biden’s purported weakness.

On Feb. 21, Craig Bannister touted how “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) posted a series of tweets over the weekend blasting U.S. President Joe Biden and Western powers for projecting weakness.” Melanie Arter similarly touted Republican Sen. Ted Cruz blaming “the current state of affairs between Russia and Ukraine on the ‘weakness’ and ‘fecklessness’ of President Biden, adding that his ‘surrender and disastrous retreat from Afghanistan is the worst military catastrophe for the United States in decades.'”

Arter found another Biden-hater and Putin-praiser for a Feb. 22 article:

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that because the Biden administration has been “so muddled” in its response that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has no fear of the United States of America and the response we might take.”

When asked whether he sees what Russia did on Monday as a minor incursion or an invasion, Pompeo said, “This is angels on the head of a pin.

“The administration has been so muddled in the way they’ve made Vladimir Putin have the upper hand throughout this entire time. Every time Putin acts we are on our back foot. He does — he has no fear of the United States of America and the response we might take,” he told Fox News’s “America Reports.”

Later that day, Arter gave Graham another Biden-bashing platform:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that the world needs more Winston Churchills and less Neville Chamberlains, and he compared President Biden to the British politician known for his foreign policy of appeasement.

[…]

“Number one we need more Churchills and less Neville Chamberlains. The West, particularly led by the Biden administration has had a Neville Chamberlain approach to Putin, to Iran, to many other areas. So why did they call it an invasion? Because it is and it was an unsustainable concept. Putin has declared parts of the Ukraine independent, no longer part of the sovereign nation of Ukraine. If that’s not an invasion, what is?” Graham said.

Bannister also attempted to mock Biden by repeating things Biden previously said about Putin:

• ‘I’m the Only Person in This Field Who’s Ever Gone Toe-to-Toe’ with Putin, Dem Candidate Biden Boasted in 2020 (in which Bannister sneered that “In its current context, going “toe-to-toe” apparently means instituting sanctions”)
• Biden 2019: ‘If I’m President, Putin’s Days of Tyranny and Trying to Intimidate U.S. and Eastern Europe are Over’ (Bannister added that “The video has resurfaced and is making the rounds on social media now that Biden is president and Putin has sent troops into Ukraine”)

On Feb. 23, Emily Robertson gave a platform to America’s greatest Putin appeaser:

“Biden has pledged to defend Ukraine’s borders, even as he opens our borders to the world,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Tuesday. “That’s how it works. Invading America is called equity; invading Ukraine is a war-crime.”

Carlson opened “Tucker Carlson Tonight” by discussing how President Joe Biden supporting Ukraine gains him and his family wealth, yet continuous conflict with Russia would immensely affect the American people financially.

Robertson uncritically repeated Carlson’s complaint that “Democrats in Washington have told you you have a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin” and that people should ask themselves “Why do I hate Putin so much?”

Bannister even gave a pushback-free platform to Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. to trash Biden’s plan of sanctions against Russia in a Feb. 23 article:

Russia is accustomed to being sanctioned and won’t end its aggression in Ukraine because of any new sanctions enacted by U.S. President Joe Biden, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, says.

“Sanctions will not solve anything regarding Russia,” Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, says.

“History doesn’t teach everyone far (sic),” Antonov said Tuesday, in a response to a reporter’s question Antonov posted on the official Facebook page of the Embassy of Russia in the U.S., calling it incredulous that any U.S. politician in the Nation’s Capital actually believes that sanctions will stop Russia from seizing regions of Ukraine.

[…]

In a post on Wednesday, Antonov chided the “obvious futility” of the sanctions and accused the U.S. of resorting to “blackmail, intimidation and threats.”

Even when sanctions against Russia started with the Ukraine invasion, CNS was quick to portray them as insufficient. A Feb. 22 article by Patrick Goodenough complained that “Russian President Vladimir Putin is not himself targeted in the sanctions rolled out by the Biden administration on Tuesday, although a White House official said that ‘no option is off the table, as the president said.'” It was not until the very end of the article that Goodenough got around to reporting that the sanctions were done in conjunction with similar sanctions from European countries.