{"id":1400633,"date":"2022-03-25T14:45:03","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T18:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1400633"},"modified":"2022-03-25T14:45:06","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T18:45:06","slug":"gop-unites-behind-peace-through-strength-at-florida-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-unites-behind-peace-through-strength-at-florida-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Unites Behind \u2018Peace Through Strength\u2019 at Florida Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-unites-behind-peace-through-strength-at-florida-retreat%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1400633&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/\">National Security<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Stefanik: US &#8216;projected weakness,&#8217; China&#8217;s Xi &#8216;knows he can eat Biden&#8217;s lunch&#8217;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tHouse Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and other Republicans \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/collin-anderson\/\" title=\"Posts by Collin Anderson\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Collin Anderson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/brent-scher\/\" title=\"Posts by Brent Scher\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Brent Scher<\/a> \u2022 March 25, 2022 2:30 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 As the United States faces an array of foreign policy challenges across the globe, Republican members of Congress at their annual policy retreat rallied behind a &#8220;peace through strength&#8221; approach and blamed President Joe Biden&#8217;s &#8220;weakness on the world stage&#8221; for emboldening foreign adversaries.<\/p>\n<p>As House Republicans huddled Thursday afternoon to discuss their strategy to counter China, Biden delivered remarks at NATO headquarters in Brussels and stated publicly that he &#8220;made no threats&#8221; to Chinese president Xi Jinping in regards to Xi&#8217;s support for Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. The admission incensed House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), who told the <em>Washington<\/em> <em>Free Beacon<\/em> it was exactly the type of comment she&#8217;d expect from Biden.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Xi knows he can eat Joe Biden&#8217;s lunch because he is a weak president of the United States,&#8221; Stefanik said. &#8220;A United States president should not be bragging, saying, \u2018I didn&#8217;t say anything tough to China.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Stefanik said global rivals are &#8220;taking advantage of this vacuum of leadership.&#8221; The best way to stay out of foreign wars, she argued, was to &#8220;make sure our adversaries fear the United States of America.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we had President Trump, they were fearful of the United States of America\u2014as they should be\u2014and they knew there would be significant consequences,&#8221; Stefanik said.<\/p>\n<p>Stefanik&#8217;s peace through strength message comes amid perceptions of a growing appetite for isolationism in the Republican Party. This was not evident at the House retreat, where over a Thursday lunch members heard from former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who, according to several members in attendance, received a standing ovation for her criticism of Biden&#8217;s weak posture.<\/p>\n<p>Rice told members that Biden publicly taking military options off the table ahead of Putin&#8217;s aggression emboldened the Russian president to take aggressive action in Ukraine without fear.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would never take options off the table and say what I wouldn&#8217;t do, you always have to have a fear factor with your enemy&#8221; was Rice&#8217;s message, members told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The call for a strong foreign policy was echoed by other members of Republican leadership. Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a Green Beret and the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, argued that Biden&#8217;s fear of escalation is driving Putin to take his action against Ukraine further.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The more we let fear of escalation drive our policy, the more space you get Putin to escalate,&#8221; Waltz told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>. Biden&#8217;s hesitancy to state clear redlines for the Russians, Waltz argued, is &#8220;actually a dangerous and escalatory position&#8221; for the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Waltz said the perception that isolationism is gaining traction on the right is due to an &#8220;outsized voice&#8221; by a minority of the party. &#8220;Look at our votes, look at our statements, it&#8217;s overwhelming,&#8221; Waltz said. &#8220;It&#8217;s peace through strength, American leadership, fight forward, if we don&#8217;t lead who will?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The lack of appetite for isolationism is also apparent in the Republican electorate\u2014a <em>Free Beacon<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/free-beacon-poll-on-ukraine-republican-voters-unified-in-call-for-forceful-response\/\">poll<\/a> of primary voters in Pennsylvania found that only 14 percent want the United States to do nothing to fight off Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the chairman of the House Republican Conference&#8217;s China Task Force, attributed Biden\u2019s failure to accept basic tenets of foreign policy to a mixture of &#8220;stubbornness and stupidity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not rocket science,&#8221; McCaul said. &#8220;You have to negotiate with strength and not weakness, and everything he&#8217;s done is weakness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A copy of McCaul&#8217;s China Task Force <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/China_Task_Force_One_Pager.01.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">briefing document<\/a> for members, which was obtained by the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>, shows calls for increased military spending to prepare for the rising China threat, as well as &#8220;enhancing the military capabilities of U.S. allies, including Taiwan, to push back on [Chinese Communist Party] aggression.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Stefanik pointed to increased military spending under Republicans in her pushback on the contention that former president Donald Trump had an isolationist foreign policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Increasing military readiness\u2014that&#8217;s not what an isolationist does,&#8221; Stefanik said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what a leader does, who believes in peace through strength.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Security Stefanik: US &#8216;projected weakness,&#8217; China&#8217;s Xi &#8216;knows he can eat Biden&#8217;s lunch&#8217;  House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and other Republicans \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":546,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1400633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/546"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}