Rep. Michael Waltz: Biden Cabinet picks represent 'headlong push' back to Obama-era foreign policy
'This is putting the old band back together,' Afghan war veteran tells Fox News
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President-elect Joe Biden's Cabinet choices indicate he will reprise the Obama administration's "disastrous" foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., warned on Monday.
“These are D.C. insider picks,” Waltz told "The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino."
“At the end of the day, this is a headlong push right back into the Obama years," said Waltz, an Army National Guard Special Forces officer and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. "This is putting the old band back together, and what I am concerned about is the really bad policy that I think a lot of people have forgotten about."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Biden announced earlier Monday that he would nominate Antony Blinken to be secretary of state, Alejandro Mayorkas to be secretary of homeland security, and Avril Haines to be director of national intelligence.
BIDEN SECRETARY OF STATE PICK BLINKEN CRITICIZED OVER IRAQ WAR, CONSULTING WORK
The president-elect also announced former Secretary of State John Kerry would be special presidential envoy for climate, and will sit on the National Security Council — the first time that the NSC will include an official dedicated to climate change. Kerry's position is not a Cabinet post.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Biden also announced that 43-year-olld Jake Sullivan will be appointed White House national security adviser, making him one of the youngest people to serve in the role in decades.
Waltz argued that Biden had “made it clear” that his administration will “head back into the disastrous Iran [nuclear] deal.”
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Iran and the threat from Iran was what pushed Israel and the Arab states together,” explained Waltz, who added that the selections represented "this underlying philosophy that we saw from Obama, Biden and his team that if we are nice to everyone, that if we extend a hand, as he said in his second inaugural speech, that everyone will be nice to us.
"And, whether that was Russia charging across Crimea and Ukraine, China crossing the South China Sea -- let’s not forget that he was with Biden when they pushed hard to get out of Iraq way too soon, and we had ISIS charging across Europe, the [2016] Pulse nightclub [attack in Orlando] ... so I don’t want in any way to go back to those years.