[See NewsBusters for more.] Immediately after Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds gave the GOP response to President Biden’s Tuesday night State of the Union address, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash defended Biden from attacks from Reynolds on his Russia record.
Anchor Jake Tapper described Reynolds’s response as “harsh,” and summarized her argument, "One item she had to say about the items leading up to the run in, run-up rather of Putin's invasion she said waiving sanctions on Russian pipelines while limiting oil production at home. That's a reference to the fact that there was a big effort in the Congress and bipartisan supported, to sanction the Nord Stream 2, a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, which Biden and the White House pushed back on because they felt like that would alienate Germany, a key ally in NATO, ultimately everybody got to where, Ted Cruz was even happy, but it took a long time and, yeah. It was more important to the Biden administration to have Germany onboard with their coalition than to—to-- impose the sanctions at that point."