President Joe Biden is standing by his statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin should not remain in power, saying he was speaking to the Russian people but not calling for regime change in Moscow.
“I’m not walking anything back. The fact of the matter is I was expressing the moral outrage I felt,” Biden told reporters at the White House Monday.
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Biden cited Putin’s “brutality” again on Monday, adding he made the comment after meeting some Ukrainian refugees who fled to Poland amid the war.
“But I want to make it clear I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change,” he said. “I was expressing moral outrage that I feel. I make no apologies for it.”
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Biden angered Moscow and upset European partners, including French President Emmanuel Macron, when he ad-libbed the line, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” at the end of remarks delivered in Warsaw on Saturday.
“I was talking to the Russian people,” Biden said Monday. “This was just stating a fact. This behavior is totally unacceptable.”
“It’s more of an aspiration than anything. He shouldn’t be in power,” he added.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Biden over the weekend, adamant that Russian leadership should not be determined by the United States.
“This is not to be decided by Mr. Biden. It should only be a choice of the people of the Russian Federation,” Peskov said.
White House aides and officials, such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, countered by spending the weekend trying to minimize the damage.
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“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” one White House staffer said before Air Force One even left Europe. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change.”
