Joe Biden’s performance at the G7 Summit was nothing to be proud of, and his little one-on-one summit with Putin hasn’t exactly been any better.
Perhaps Biden knows things haven’t gone well in his first real test of leadership overseas, because when he was asked by CNN’s Kaitlin Collins why he has any confidence in Putin, Biden went ballistic.
“Why are you so confident [Putin] will change his behavior, Mr. President?” Collins asked.
“When did I say I was confident? What I said was, let’s get it straight: I said what will change [Kremlin] behavior is if the rest of the world reacts to them and it diminishes their standing in the world. I’m not confident of anything, I’m just stating a fact,” Biden responded.
“But given his past behavior has not changed, and in that press conference after sitting down with you for several hours, he denied any involvement in cyberattacks, he downplayed human rights abuses, he even refused to say Alexei Navalny’s name. So how does that amount to a constructive meeting, as President Putin framed it?” Collins pressed.
“If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business,” Biden huffed, then walked away.
The White House clearly saw that Biden’s behavior was unacceptable and they needed to do some cleanup because Biden later apologized. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy, the last answer I gave,” Biden said at Geneva Airport.
Biden said something similar last year after his controversial comments to Charlamagne tha God that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
“I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy,” Biden said during a phone call with black business leaders after the incident. “I shouldn’t have been so cavalier.”
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