Joe Biden addressed the nation on Friday afternoon to speak about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's death. He said he was "both not surprised and outraged" by the news and praised Navalny for standing up to "corruption, to violence, to all the bad things that the Putin government is doing." He also stated unequivocally that Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for his death.
"Putin had him poisoned, he had him arrested, had him prosecuted for fabricated crimes, he sentenced him to prison," Biden said. "Even in prison, he was a powerful voice for the truth."
Soon after that, he got to what was likely the real reason for the address to the nation, which was to exploit the story to push for more funding for Ukraine.
"This tragedy reminds us of the stakes of this moment, we have to provide the funding so Ukraine can keep defending itself," Biden claimed. "I mean this in a literal sense: history is watching. History is watching the House of Representatives."
Can you hear me rolling my eyes?
"The failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten," Biden continued. "It's going to go down in the pages of history... the clock is ticking and this has to happen."
And then, of course, Biden had to move on to attacking Republicans for being out of town for two weeks because the House schedule has members working in their districts. From there, he segued into an attack on Trump.
"You know, we have to realize what we're dealing with Putin," he said. "All of us should reject the dangerous statements made by the previous president that invited Russia to invade our NATO allies if they weren't paying up. He said if an ally did not pay their dues, he encouraged Russia. To quote, do whatever the hell they want."
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Then he just froze mid-speech. There was silence for several seconds. You imagine what kind of panic there was at the White House when this happened. And his feeble attempt to recover from that glitch didn't help things.
"...hmmph... I... guess I should .. clear my... mind a little bit... not say what I'm really thinking... but let me be clear. This is an outrageous thing for a president to say. I can't fathom... can't fathom from Truman on, they're rolling over their graves hearing in this."
"From Truman on, they're rollin' in their graves hearing this!"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 16, 2024
Biden attacks Trump following Alexei Navalny's death. pic.twitter.com/kigerZGCl5
I should note that the media has grossly distorted Trump's comments about defending NATO allies, and now Joe Biden has, too. Trump was merely telling a story about how he got NATO nations to pay their commitments while he was president — he never, as Biden claimed, "invited Russia to invade our NATO allies." It's also worth noting here that Trump's insistence that NATO allies pay their dues made NATO stronger, and Russia didn't attempt to invade its European neighbors until Biden took office.
Biden's weakness did more to embolden Russia than anything Trump did or said during his presidency. And that's what he's trying to get the public to ignore.
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