https:\/\/www.vox.com\/23000520\/biden-putin-remain-power-gaffe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Given the horrendous loss of life and destruction caused by Putin\u2019s war of choice in Ukraine, it certainly makes emotional sense for many across the world to yearn for his downfall (and indeed, some cheered Biden\u2019s comments).<\/p>\n
But that statement coming from the president of the United States carried some weighty implications \u2014 and risks. <\/p>\n
The big one was that Putin would interpret this as an escalation and that tensions between the nuclear-armed US and nuclear-armed Russia would get even worse, hurting efforts to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine and raising the risks of war. Biden has said many times that he does not want war between the US and Russia, and he reiterated that Monday, but the question is whether Putin understands that.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“More extensive clean-up from Biden personally ensued when the president spoke to reporters at the budget event Monday. He said:
\n“I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing, and the actions of this man \u2014 just \u2014 just the brutality of it. Half the children in Ukraine. I had just come from being with those families…<\/p>\n
… I want to make it clear: I wasn\u2019t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it.”<\/p>\n
The president went on to clarify that these were his \u201cpersonal feelings,\u201d not policy, adding:<\/p>\n
“He shouldn\u2019t remain in power. Just like, you know, bad people shouldn\u2019t continue to do bad things. But it doesn\u2019t mean we have a fundamental policy to do anything to take Putin down in any way.<\/p>\n
… Nobody believes I was talking about taking down Putin. … What have I been talking about since this all began? The only war that\u2019s worse than one intended is one that\u2019s unintended. The last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia. That\u2019s not part of it.<\/p>\n
I was expressing my outrage at the behavior of this man. It\u2019s outrageous. It\u2019s outrageous. And it\u2019s more an aspiration than anything. He shouldn\u2019t be in power. People like this shouldn\u2019t be ruling countries, but they do. The fact they do \u2014 it doesn\u2019t mean I can\u2019t express my outrage about it.””<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[552,390,272,355,1583,314,1545,780,315,1584,311,158],"class_list":["post-7548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-conflict","tag-diplomacy","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-gaffe","tag-international-relations","tag-invasion","tag-joe-biden","tag-russia","tag-speech","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7549,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7548\/revisions\/7549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}