Loose lips Biden does it again

Brad Slager:

Once again President Biden says things that are head-turning, and once again the Biden administration disputes his words.

It was in the early days of his term when Joe Biden would on occasion drop a curious phrase. While speaking extemporaneously Joe would utter as aside, “Man, I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this…”, and then unspool some syntax for the microphones. It is revealing in itself that Biden would have the notion that he should not say something but he could not fight off such a compulsion, saying the forbidden phrases anyway. But there was far more to this.

These moments would raise questions, such as “With whom?!”, as well as “Why would the President of all people be in any sort of a tangle for what he says?” 

Inevitably, speculation would rise as to who is actually running the show in the White House because if the President was tipping his hand that he had to actually answer to someone this introduced a set of serious problems. Well, those problems and the questions are growing from serious, to severe.

Last night, as Nick Arama detailed this morning, Joe Biden spoke at a fundraiser and he intoned some grave words about Putin and the prospect of global annihilation. 

Speaking at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “a guy I know fairly well” and the Russian leader was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons. We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

How about that for some uplifting pull quotes just ahead of the mid-term elections? A Democrat President asserting that he has overseen a foreign policy that might bring us to the brink of a nuclear wipeout! Say what want about the mean tweets-era of Trump, but our foreign theater presence was not resembling the gameboard of a Stratego match president by a player who ingested a fistful of mushrooms.

But as many awoke today with the uplifting words of the president admitting that he might be ushering in the era of Armageddon, we now learn that maybe Joe’s comments were not fully sanctioned. Kelly O’Donnell, White House correspondent for NBC News, gives us an update from on board the President’s pleasurecraft.

While the official walk-back is not that surprising anymore, we need to note the lack of any concern from the journalists. Do you mean to say the president alluding to a nuclear war, and then having the White House officials quickly disavowing what he said in about half a day’s time is not at all concerning? I am relatively certain that global leaders are being apprised of what Joe Biden said and feeling a level of uneasiness as a result. But our press corps is facing this reality on a regular basis, and you will be hard-pressed to find a journalist coming forward with words of concern.

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Biden is likely talking about Putin's threat of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine and the corresponding threat from the US about its response to such an event although nuclear weapons were not part of the US threat.  But when the two powers get into escalation it is hard to say they would not lose control of the situation.   Biden does say a lot of crazy things sometimes and it is possible that could trigger an unhinged response from Putin who appears to be losing his war with Ukraine.