President Joe Biden apologized for being “a wise guy” after growing irritable with a reporter who pressed him on his confidence regarding whether Russian President Vladimir Putin can change following the pair’s summit in Geneva.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy, the last answer I gave,” Biden told reporters Wednesday at Geneva Airport.
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Biden was leaving his post-meeting press conference, held at the Hotel du Parc that neighbors the 18th-century Villa La Grange, when he stopped to respond to the question from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“Why are you so confident [Putin] will change his behavior, Mr. President?” she asked.
“I’m not confident I’m going to change his behavior. What the hell? What do you do all the time? When did I say I was confident?” Biden replied. “If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business.”
The exchange came after Biden, who had removed his suit jacket on a sunny podium on a warm day in Geneva, had left the podium during the press conference but kept responding to reporters’ shouted questions. At one point, he walked back to nearly center stage, standing on ground level in front of the press, and jousted with Collins and others.
On the air just after Biden boarded Air Force One, Collins said she appreciated the apology but that it was not necessary because her job is to ask pointed questions of presidents of both parties. She is the network’s chief White House correspondent and sometimes clashed with the Trump White House, including the 45th president himself.
For weeks, Biden and White House aides said the goals for the summit were not to force an immediate change from Putin, a former KGB officer. Rather, the Biden team said it wanted to be frank about differences and “red lines” while also trying to inject some “stability” back into a relationship that has become more and more chilly even as former President Donald Trump sought, without success, to develop closer United States-Russia relations.
Q: “Why are you so confidant he’ll change his behavior, Mr. President?”
President Biden: “I’m not confidant…Where he hell–what do you do all the time? When did I say I was confidant? I said…” pic.twitter.com/fdPTAI2Dfy
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 16, 2021
Biden went on to explain Putin may alter his behavior if “the rest of the world reacts” and that it “diminishes their standing in the world.”
“I’m not confident of anything. I’m just stating a fact,” he said, appearing to press the European leaders he had just left in Belgium to do more to pressure Putin to change.
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Only days earlier, Biden was needled with the same inquiry during his post-NATO gathering press conference.
“There’s no guarantee you can change a person’s behavior or change the behavior of their country,” Biden said.
