Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) took aim Monday at Vice President Harris’s foreign policy chops, saying Harris does not elicit fear in the country’s adversaries overseas.
“The only person that our adversaries fear less than Joe Biden is Kamala Harris,” Johnson said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” with Brian Kilmeade, saying that’s true “whether you’re talking about domestic affairs or foreign affairs.”
“Imagine her as the commander in chief of the U.S. military in these dangerous times,” Johnson continued. “This is the most dangerous time since World War II, Brian. We cannot afford to do that.”
Johnson made the case that former President Trump, on the other hand, is feared on the global stage and is therefore fit to lead the country.
“You’ve got to have Donald Trump in the White House,” Johnson said. “He’s the one they fear and respect.”
The Hill has reached out to the Harris campaign for a response.
Trump and his allies have frequently touted Trump’s aggressive and sometimes unpredictable approach to foreign policy. They say U.S. adversaries fear the consequences of crossing him.
Trump in the past has asserted Russia would not have invaded Ukraine had he been president, and he has also signaled the conflict in the Middle East could have been avoided with him at the helm.
Democrats, however, have repeatedly hit Trump for at times cozying up to autocratic leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom he hosted at Mar-a-Lago last month.
U.S. allies have also expressed concerns about the former president's embrace of isolationist policies.
Trump has threatened to not defend European allies who don’t pay enough in defense spending, a point of contention in the Western security alliance NATO. He has also pledged to end the war in Ukraine before he takes office, sparking fear about how that could be accomplished without ceding territory to Russia.
Recently, he said Taiwan should pay the U.S. for its defense.