Fox News Reporter Confronts Antony Blinken: ‘At What Point Do You Stop Playing Russia’s Game’ Amid Their Threat to Invade Ukraine

Fox News’ Benjamin Hall confronted Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday over the U.S. approach to Russia as it threatens to invade Ukraine.

The moment happened following the United States delivering written responses to Russia.

During the State Department press briefing, Hall said, “Secretary, have you considered that Russia is just buying time till they’re in a place to invade Ukraine, making you jump through hoops like hand-delivering written responses to questions that you’ve answered time and time again in the past?

“And meanwhile, they’re destabilizing Ukraine from within. The economy’s crumbling. You’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars shoring them up. At what point do you stop playing Russia’s game and take preemptive action now?”

Blinken responded:

So, Ben, first, we’re, as you know, not standing still, and we can walk and chew gum at the same time.  And that’s very much what we’ve been doing.  So we’ve been clear to Russia that there are two paths: a diplomatic one but also a path of defense and deterrence, and if Russia chooses aggression, a path that will lead to massive consequences.

And so even as we’ve been engaging in the diplomacy, which is my job and responsibility, we have been very resolutely preparing for Russia to take the other path, the path of aggression.  And as I laid out, the work that we’ve done over the past couple of months in bringing allies and partners together around massive consequences for Russia – should it renew its aggression – and the very detailed work that’s been done on that, the shoring up of–

Hall interrupted and said, “But they are being aggressive now.” Blinken asked to finish what he was saying and Hall obliged.

Blinken continued:

The shoring up in very significant ways of our support for Ukraine, including the defensive military support, the draw-down that the president issued in December, which has now – is now being delivered to Ukraine, the additional steps to make sure that defensive military assistance was being made available to Ukraine, including the authorizations that I signed a week ago to allow other countries that have U.S.-origin military equipment to share it with Ukraine, the work we’re doing to bolster Ukraine’s economy, the work we’re doing to shore up Europe on energy if there are disruptions as a result of conflict, and of course the orders that the President gave, the Secretary of Defense gave earlier this week to make sure that we are fully prepared on a moment’s notice to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank in the event of renewed Russian aggression – all of those things have been happening very deliberately and effectively over the last many weeks.

So these two paths – and the approach that we’ve taken, these are mutually reinforcing.  The work that we’re doing on defense, on deterrence, bringing allies and partners together, I think reinforces our diplomacy. And at the same time, it’s very important that we pursue the diplomacy whether or not – you may well be right – that Russia’s not serious about this at all.

But we have an obligation to test that proposition, to pursue the diplomatic path, to leave no diplomatic stone unturned, because for sure it’s far preferable to resolve these differences peacefully consistent with our principles than it would be to have renewed aggression, renewed conflict, and everything that will follow from that.  But the point is we’re prepared either way.

Watch above, via CSPAN.