Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) believes someone in the White House has the ability to silence President Joe Biden and wants to know who that is.
Risch took time to try to extract that alleged individualâs identity from Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
âIâm more interested in the top decision making. Look, weâve all seen this. We saw it as recently as yesterday. Somebody in the White House has authority to press the button and stop the president, cut off the presidentâs speaking ability and sound,â Risch said on Tuesday.
He asked, âWho is that person?â
Blinken let out a chuckle and said, âI think anyone who knows the president, including members of this committee, knows that he speaks very clearly and very deliberately for himself. No one else does.â
Risch retorted, âAre you saying that thereâs no one in the White House that can cut him off? Because yesterday that happened, and itâs happened a number of times before that. Itâs been widely reported that somebody has the ability to push the button and cut off his sound and stop him from speaking.â
Blinken maintained that there is âno such personâ and reiterated that Biden speaks for himself and âmakes all the strategic decisions.â
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However, the Idado senator asked if Blinken is âunaware that this is actually happening,â as he noted reports that the video of Biden was cut off during an event while he started to ask a question.
He asked, âAre you telling this committee that this does not happen? That thereâs no one in the White House who pushes the button and cuts him off in mid-sentence?â
âThatâs correct,â Blinken responded.
Risch paused for a few seconds, leaning back in his chair, then asked, âSo this didnât happen yesterday nor on the other occasions where the media showed the American people that his sentence was cut off in mid-sentence. Are you saying that didnât happen?â
However, Blinken said he did not know what Risch was referring to.