Biden Rejects Unanimous NSC ‘More Often Than You Might Think’
“We will prepare consensus recommendations and he’ll say, ‘I don’t buy that,’” Jake Sullivan said.
JACQUELINE FELDSCHER | APRIL 14, 2022 02:49 PM ET
President Joe Biden regularly deviates from the recommendations made by his national security team, one of his top advisors revealed Thursday.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Biden overruling decisions from top national security officials, including when there’s agreement between Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is not uncommon and is “one of the humbling things” about his job. Sullivan argued the president’s questioning of his
“We can run a whole process that involves multiple layers of review and decision and a lot of people who are pretty smart and very knowledgeable on the subject all coming together collectively around a consensus recommendation,” Sullivan said at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. “We can take it to the president, who will have spent that day focused on domestic policy or something totally different, and he will look at it and then he will ask a question that makes you think, ‘Oh wow, we didn’t even really get to that.’”
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/04/biden-rejects-unanimous-nsc-more-often-you-might-think/365666/
