The Republican National Committee is going after President Biden for his Wednesday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, accusing him of handing Russia a "win."
RNC Communications Director Danielle Alvarez in a statement Wednesday argued that "giving Putin a meeting is just the latest win that Joe Biden has handed Russia," attacking the president for "foreign policy failures" that have "strengthened Russia at the expense of our country."
Other Republicans had previously slammed Biden leading up to the summit for being soft on Russia, though The New York Times wrote that such critics tended to "neglect to mention their backing of" former President Donald Trump, who "spent four years seeking to befriend" Putin while "dismissing Russia's aggressive behavior." During his Helsinki summit with Putin in 2018, Trump famously said he didn't "see any reason why" Russia would have interfered in the 2016 presidential election, defying U.S. intelligence officials.
The Washington Examiner's David M. Drucker, then, tweeted that the RNC was accusing Biden of handing Russia a win without "a hint of irony," while Steve Benen wrote for MSNBC, "It's a bit jarring to see Republicans decide that they're actually the tough-on-Russia party — as if the last four years were little more than a pesky mirage that didn't really count."