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One Clip From Antony Blinken's Trip to Kyiv Is Not Going Over Too Well

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  May 15, 2024 9:00 AM

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a trip to Kyiv to remind President Volodymyr Zelenskyy how much the Biden administration is determined to support Ukraine. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his administration as a whole have increasingly thrown Israel under the bus in the Israel-Hamas conflict. On Tuesday night, clips surfaced of Blinken appearing at a bar where he attempted to jam out to Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."

"And listen, I know this is a really, really difficult time," Blinken told the crowd at the bar. "Your soldiers, your citizens, particularly in the northeast in Kharkiv, are suffering tremendously. But they need to know, you need to know, the United States is with you, so much of the world is with you. And they’re fighting not just for a free Ukraine but for the free world, and the free world is with you too." 

As our sister sites of Twitchy and RedState have highlighted, the response to Blinken's musical abilities has been less than great. 

It also can't be emphasized enough ironic the song choice is, given that Zelenskyy canceled elections in Ukraine. Blinken is no doubt talking about "a free Ukraine" in the context of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, which, as a reminder, didn't happen until Biden was president. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll at the time in February 2022 also showed that the American people believe Putin wouldn't have done so had Donald Trump still been in office. What about a Ukraine free enough to have elections, though?

A headline from Reuters about Blinken's visit tellingly noted that "Blinken, in Kyiv, vows unwavering US support as Russian attacks intensify." We'll see what Congress has to say about that, although they did last month approve billions to Ukraine as part of a foreign aid package. 

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This is almost reminiscent in a way of how Blinken's X (then Twitter) account posted repeatedly his Spotify playlist during the last few days of 2021 and into the new year for 2022. Only this time it feels considerably worse. 

Twitchy's Doug Powers made an even older reference regarding a cringeworthy musical moment. In January 2015, after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in France, then Secretary of State John Kerry under the Obama-Biden administration, sent James Taylor over there to perform "You've Got a Friend."

The footage of Blinken partaking in the jam session also comes as House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) discussed at length during Tuesday's House Rules Committee hearing how the Biden administration has not been transparent on the issue of halting aid to Israel. 

The Biden administration not only been seriously lacking transparency when it comes to members of Congress, but Blinken was also happy to throw Israel under the bus during his Sunday show appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation." As the secretary told host Margaret Brennan, per a report from the State Department "it was reasonable to assess that, in certain instances, Israel acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law." He also said that his department hasn't "definitive conclusion," but that's still not exactly helpful to Israel's fight to defeat Hamas.

Meanwhile, Blinken also said during that same interview that they're "doing everything we can to rush this assistance out there" to Ukraine.