Live Breaking News & Updates on Being Biden|Page 2
Stay updated with breaking news from Being biden. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Anyone else. as you know, and as you ve heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in russia or anywhere else, for that matter. secretary of state antony blinken walking back the president s remarks in that speech yesterday as it makes headlines around the world. joining me is p.j. crowley, former state department spokesperson in the obama administration. p.j., awfully good to see you. let s talk about president biden who has largely been very careful with his words since the start of this invasion although he has called president putin a war criminal and a butcher. how unusual and important is it that the state department clarify biden s comment in yesterday s speech? well, i think we heard from the president that this is precisely what he thinks. normally you hear these comments in the situation room at the white house. he said something out loud. and i think, you know, notwithstanding the attempt to clarify that this doesn t mean the united states is cha ....
He says, i would not have used the line, you see him say, but he would not have walked it back either. i ve covered the president for a long time, he has often said, no one ever doubts i mean what i say, sometimes i say all that i mean. we ve heard officials who talk about the emotion of the president s day yesterday, meeting with refugees, clearly the speech, added to everything he saw that day, led to his ad lib and clearly they re dealing with the fallout now. indeed, and you do have that perspective, having covered him for so many years. mike memoli, thank you so much. peter baker, msnbc political analyst and chief white house correspondent for the new york times, a really good friend, on a sunday in particular. this ongoing speculation about whether president biden s remarks but vladimir putin were planned or entirely off-the-cuff, let s just remind folks exactly what he said. here it is. we ll have a different future, a brighter future, rooted in democracy and ....
And powerful speech on the situation in ukraine, potentially could be seen as a very provocative set of remarks on the part of the u.s. president as it was being received by president putin and that s the crux of what we re hearing from lawmakers, starting with senator rob portman earlier today on meet the press. take a listen. i think all of us believe the world would be a better place without vladimir putin. but second, that s not the official u.s. policy, and by saying that, that regime change is our strategy, effectively, it plays into the hands of the russian propagandists and into the hands of vladimir putin. so it was a mistake, and the president recognized that. reporter: now, we ve seen, obviously, secretary of state tony blinken joining the anonymous white house officials yesterday who said this does not represent a new policy. but it was interesting to see the response and reaction of one democratic congressman, tom malinowsky of new jersey, a former state department o ....
Its approach to russia in terms of trying to assertively try to push putin from office, i do think that the president s comments about being a war criminal as well as saying that russia merits a better leader, will have a longer term impact in terms of, say, sanctions, for example. and it s going to be very difficult to take steps in the future that relieve pressure on someone like putin given what he s done. okay. let s talk about french president emmanuel macron who said this on french tv this morning. we have to do everything so that the situation does not get out of hand. we made the choice not to intervene in the conflict militarily. we must not be in the escalation, neither, of the words, nor of the actions. then he also added he would not have called putin a butcher. but is macron being a fair arbiter? how can biden s words be seen as ....
Doing something about it or that you should do something about it. that s where things get complicated. so set aside those nine words and let s look at the bigger picture in terms of the significance of that speech. does the president s legacy depend on the outcome of the russia/ukraine conflict? reporter: yeah, i do think this is a defining moment for his presidency, and the way it ends will help shape how history looks back at the biden presidency, no question about it. we don t know the ending, obviously. but we ve seen in just a month s time that the russians have not been as successful as they clearly had thought they would be and that president biden has managed to stick close to the european allies and help build the alliance together. but if this continues to drag on and it doesn t appear that biden is able to impose, you know, a resolution satisfying the west, that will obviously not help him in history. the polls obviously show right now that many americans are dubious ab ....