Democracy Dies in Darkness

Sen. James Risch’s odd questioning about a button pusher in the White House controlling Biden

Republicans continue to grab at low-hanging fruit attacking the president, often in place of legitimate questions about the Afghanistan withdrawal

Analysis by
Staff writer
September 14, 2021 at 2:43 p.m. EDT
During a Senate hearing on Afghanistan on Sept. 14, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) asked about the possibility of staff preventing President Biden from speaking. (Video: The Washington Post)

Two weeks after the Biden administration’s troubled withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan, a powerful Senate Republican finally had Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the hot seat Tuesday to grill him on what went so wrong.

But instead of asking about an end of the war that a majority of Americans agree was poorly executed, Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho) used much of his time to press Blinken about whether an aide cut off President Biden’s microphone at a recent speaking engagement.