No free world leader should hesitate to state plainly that the world would be a far better place if Putin were no longer in power in Russia. A good way to make that come about is to say exactly that. Russia will be pariah until Putin is gone. When the President is right, the White House should stick with him instead of fumbling to apologize to a murderous dictator for speaking the truth.
Biden can say he shouldn't remain in power without saying he was going to remove him. There shouldn't be anything to walk back.
Biden has had people in his own fucking country calling for his violent removal from office before he even took the oath. He seems to get along just fine. Putin will survive. Well until or unless he doesn’t courtesy of the same 9mm headache his defense minister got. That is what Biden was getting at. We’ll go back to normal (-ish, got to allow some time for people to get distracted by other stuff) relations as soon as Russia takes out the trash.
It was fully intentional and that there is no meaningful downside - give or take a brief injection of fuel into the frothing right-wing pundits who will take any excuse to dry-hump the dead horse of Biden’s supposed senility for their crimson Trump cult. Biden himself gets to sound tough and direct, saying what everyone is thinking, and then the White House “course corrects” to express what will be the actual policy framework for real-world action. And if the trial balloon attracts more support and momentum than expected worldwide (or, better yet, in the corridors of competitive power in Moscow), that’s a bonus.
Hey, all you Trump supporters - You should be observant enough to see Trump made an entire presidency and fucking career out of saying what he meant and then walking it back. Maybe Biden learned a few tricks from the master.
Biden can say he shouldn't remain in power without saying he was going to remove him. There shouldn't be anything to walk back.
Biden has had people in his own fucking country calling for his violent removal from office before he even took the oath. He seems to get along just fine. Putin will survive. Well until or unless he doesn’t courtesy of the same 9mm headache his defense minister got. That is what Biden was getting at. We’ll go back to normal (-ish, got to allow some time for people to get distracted by other stuff) relations as soon as Russia takes out the trash.
It was fully intentional and that there is no meaningful downside - give or take a brief injection of fuel into the frothing right-wing pundits who will take any excuse to dry-hump the dead horse of Biden’s supposed senility for their crimson Trump cult. Biden himself gets to sound tough and direct, saying what everyone is thinking, and then the White House “course corrects” to express what will be the actual policy framework for real-world action. And if the trial balloon attracts more support and momentum than expected worldwide (or, better yet, in the corridors of competitive power in Moscow), that’s a bonus.
Hey, all you Trump supporters - You should be observant enough to see Trump made an entire presidency and fucking career out of saying what he meant and then walking it back. Maybe Biden learned a few tricks from the master.