With the last nine, unscripted words of an impassioned speech about Russia's aggression in Ukraine, President Joe Biden created a troubling distraction.
His comment that Russia’s Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” — an assertion that his aides were forced to quickly clean up — overshadowed his larger message of solidifying the Western coalition that’s confronting Moscow.
The war in Russia has consumed much of the White House’s messaging bandwidth, but Biden is looking to turn the spotlight onto some of his domestic priorities this week. Biden’s case isn’t helped by his approval ratings. A slim 34% of Americans think Biden is doing a good job handling the economy, which is normally the top issue for voters in an election year, according to a poll released Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden has enjoyed some rare bipartisan support for his handling of the Ukraine crisis. But some Republicans who have been generally supportive of his approach to the crisis chided him for his comments. Speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, Blinken said Biden meant that “Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else.”
During a news conference in Brussels on Thursday, he said the U.S. would respond “in kind” if Putin used chemical weapons in Ukraine. The next day, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the president meant that “we’ll respond accordingly,” not that the U.S. would use chemical weapons of its own.
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