US president says he was expressing “moral outrage” and not policy and that “nobody believes” he was serious
On Monday, US President Joe Biden stood firm in his assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin shouldn’t be in power. However, he claimed that it was his moral outrage at the conflict in Ukraine, not a change in policy, and no one was to take that seriously.
Biden unveiled his 2023 budget proposal at the White House on Monday, but the press corps was far more interested in the remarks he made during last week’s trip to Poland – including when he said about Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” a remark widely interpreted as calling for regime change in Moscow.
“I’m not walking anything back,”Biden responded to Monday’s question. “I want to make it clear: I was not then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it.”
Asked if his remarks complicated the diplomacy about ending the war, Biden said no, arguing that Putin’s “escalatory efforts”They were “complicates things a great deal, but I don’t think it complicates it at all.”
Biden answered another question on Warsaw and said that “people like this shouldn’t be ruling countries,”We will refer to Putin again.
Another reporter reminded Biden of his extensive foreign policy experience – he sat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for years – and asked if he could see how his words could be interpreted as a policy statement, or used as propaganda by Russia.
“No and no,” Biden replied. “Because it’s ridiculous. Nobody believes… I was talking about taking down Putin. Nobody believes that.”
Biden also claimed that he had never revealed to the US soldiers in Poland that he was going to Ukraine. “when you get there, you’ll see,”Oder that the US would “respond in kind”to the possibility of a chemical attack from Russia. Or that he asked for regime change in Russia.
“None of the 3 occurred,” he told Fox News’ Peter Doocy. “You interpret the language that way.”
According to US President Donald Trump, he spoke with the troops regarding “helping train the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland.”
Doocy – “All the big things that you have to say on the global stage are being retracted.”Biden: “What is getting walked back?Biden: They told the troops that they were going to Ukraine and the U.S. would use chemical weapons. Biden: This is not the case. pic.twitter.com/cwZPzANIoC
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 28, 2022
Biden ignored the remarks about chemical weapons.
“I’m not going to tell you. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’ve got to be silly,”He said this to the reporter, whom was called a “stupid son of a b****” back in January. Biden laughed and stated that Doocy had said that the world wanted to know. “the world wants to know a lot of things.”
White House advisers rushed to assist on Saturday “clarify” Biden’s remarks in Warsaw, telling reporters that whatever the president had said, what he meant was that Putin can’t be allowed to “exercise power over neighboring countries.”
On Sunday, Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, went one step further and stated that “we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia – or anywhere else, for that matter.”
However, Monday morning’s official consensus was that Biden had only expressed an opinion.
“I think that speech that you saw was a reflection of his emotional connection to this issue and commitment to European security, to NATO and to Ukraine,” the White House Energy Security Coordinator Amos Hochstein told the Dubai Global Energy Forum. “I think it was a very emotional, very personal view,” Hochstein stated that he believed Biden should be elected. “was not indicating a change of US policy and regime change.”
[ad_2]
