Key Senate Republican demands Biden impose boycotts and sanctions on Russia, China

A key Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is blasting President Biden's tepid responses to adversaries, demanding the administration impose new sanctions on Russia and withdraw all U.S. athletes from the Beijing Winter Olympics.

"Don't send our athletes to the Olympics, for goodness sake. Just say no," Sen. Marsha Blackburn, (R-Tenn) told Just the News, suggesting the Biden administration organize its own "Olympic Freedom Games" in the United States for allies to compete outside China.

Blackburn said Biden's decision to simply keep U.S. diplomats from attending the China Winter Olympics was too weak a response for the aggressions Beijing has displayed toward Taiwan and the human rights abuses it has committed against Muslim Uighers.

"I was so surprised that there was not something more forceful that he would do, and that he would just say, 'Well, we're going to do a diplomatic boycott,'" she said during an interview Friday on the John Solomon Reports podcast. 

Similarly, Blackburn said, Biden should impose new sanctions on Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs for massing large numbers of Russian troops on the Ukraine border in a clear threat to an American ally.

"One of the things that we should do is sanctions, and begin to look at the importance of economic sanctions, trade sanctions, sanctioning Russian oligarchs," she said. "When you look at the weakness there with Putin, another thing when it comes to dealing with China, what you have to do is let them know that we are watching them, and we are not going to be putting up with this."

She urged the administration to consider sanctions on Chinese telecommunications and electric car battery companies as a way of pushing back against Beijing's increasing hostility toward Taiwan. 

"I would start with Huawei," she said, citing the Chinese electronics giant. "And that is someplace that we need to look at, all of these Chinese telecommunication companies, ZTE, Huawei, these companies and just say, no, we're not going to do business with them. And then follow it very closely with some of these companies that are doing electric vehicle batteries, and that are doing some of these transmission components and just say, no, we're not wanting to bring these into our supply chain. Not now, not ever."