White House officials reiterated on Wednesday that President Joe Biden wasn’t calling for regime change when he said Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.”
Director of communications Kate Bedingfield told reporters during a White House press briefing that Biden was expressing moral outrage rather than a true policy change.
BIDEN: ‘I’M NOT WALKING ANYTHING BACK’ ON WHETHER PUTIN SHOULD BE IN POWER
“I think the words of the president here were incredibly powerful,” Bedingfield said. “He spoke personally about the moral outrage that he felt, which is shared by people all across the world. It does not mean he’s articulating a change in policy. It does not mean he’s laying out a change in U.S. policy.”
As Biden himself mentioned the day before, Bedingfield noted that he made the statement after meeting with Ukrainian refugees and seeing their struggles.
“Many of you were on that trip and saw firsthand some of the pain that Vladimir Putin has inflicted on people who are fleeing their homes and who are seeing their country war-torn,” she added.
The president drew plenty of backlash for saying Putin “cannot remain in power,” with many raising concerns over how the comment may escalate the war in Ukraine or upset diplomatic negotiations.
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.
But Biden defended the remarks Monday, saying he’s “not walking anything back” and making points similar to Bedingfield’s. Administration officials have sought to clarify the statement for the better part of a week.
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“This was an incredibly personal, powerful statement of moral outrage,” said Bedingfield. “It was not an articulation of a new U.S. policy. I think both of those things can be and are true.”
