Miranda Devine: Joe Biden’s own staff contradict US President

The world cowers as the US president bumbles from one contradiction to the next, writes Miranda Devine.

Far be it from me to defend Joe Biden but the effrontery of his White House staff and the State Department is concerning.

Three times in three days last week they contradicted comments by the US President and didn’t even try to hide the fact that he had blundered.

Either he is competent to serve as president or he is not. It is simply unsustainable for the White House to keep “walking back” off the wall, off-the-cuff statements like the ones he made last week on his visit to Europe.

What the president’s underlings are doing is contradicting him in real time. They must have crack flying squads ready to fan out for damage control whenever they think Biden has strayed from his marching orders.

In other words, what the leader of the free world actually says is meaningless. He doesn’t control his administration. It is the faceless men in the White House who call the shots.

That is the most logical conclusion to be drawn from his car crash of a trip to Europe last week.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden, 79, said of Vladimir Putin, in an unscripted brain snap at the end of a speech in Poland on Saturday.

US President Joe Biden. Picture: Nicholas Kamm / AFP

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, how could these words be taken as anything other than a provocative call for regime change at a time when the world is trying to de-escalate the conflict? Putin’s spokesman certainly took it that way.

“How Biden sparked a global uproar with nine ad-libbed words about Putin,” was the understated headline in the Washington Post, describing the international freak-out.

A White House spokesman rushed out to contradict the president, telling pool reporters on location: “The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

Right, except that was not the president’s point and, at a press conference on Monday, he contradicted his staffers’ contradiction of him before contradicting himself again.

“I’m not walking anything back,” he told reporters, referring to notes printed on a small cheat sheet in his left hand. He said he made “no apologies” for his remarks about Putin. “It’s more an aspiration than anything. He shouldn’t be in power.”

Biden can’t have been aware that his subordinates had been contradicting him. It happened on three consecutive days in Europe.

“You’re going to see when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re gonna see … women, young people standing in the middle in front of a damned tank just saying, ‘I’m not leaving, I’m holding my ground’,” Biden told US troops in Poland on Friday, leading to the logical conclusion that the troops were about to be sent “there”, presumably to Ukraine, because where else in Europe would they see women and young people standing in front of a “damn tank”?

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: Mikhail Klimentyev/ SPUTNIK/AFP

Immediately, a White House spokesman rushed in to clean up his muddled language: “The president has been clear we are not sending US troops to Ukraine and there is no change in that position.”

On Thursday in Belgium, when asked at a press conference what would be the response if Russia used chemical weapons, Biden said the US would respond “in kind.” In other words, use chemical weapons. That was news to the Pentagon.

It was left to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to contradict his boss in no uncertain terms.

“The United States has no intention of using chemical weapons, period, under any circumstance,” Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One — and then failed to show up at a planned press briefing on Monday.

Once would be bad enough, but three times, at a time of global peril, Biden made assertions that immediately were walked back by his subordinates.

US President, Joe Biden delivers a speech in Warsaw, Poland. Picture: Omar Marques/Getty Images

A small business couldn’t function like that if the CEO kept being contradicted by his executives in public. Something has to give.

In Monday’s press conference with the president, Fox News’ Peter Doocy raised the concern on everyone’s mind: “Big things you say on the world stage keep getting walked back.”

Biden snapped: “What’s getting walked back?”

Doocy then recited the three high-stakes ad-libbed gaffes Biden had made in Europe.

“It sounded like you told US troops they were going to Ukraine. It sounded like you said it was possible the US could use a chemical weapon, and it sounded like you were calling for regime change in Russia”.

Biden retorted. “None of the three occurred. None of the three. You interpret the language that way.”

But all three did occur and everyone heard them. Only the most sycophantic members of the media went along with the face-saving rewrite he went on to provide.

It was utterly “ridiculous” to say that he had called for regime change in Russia, he said. “Nobody believes we’re going to take down, that I was talking about taking down Putin.

“The last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia.”

Well, that’s a relief, at least.

But on matters with enormous global ramifications, Biden’s confused speech and inability to co-ordinate a coherent message with the White House and State Department is frightening.

This is a president who doesn’t command basic respect from his own staff let alone from America’s adversaries. They don’t even pretend he isn’t a serial gaffe machine.

It’s not as if the stakes aren’t high, with real concerns that the Ukraine crisis could escalate into World War 3 if not handled properly.

And handling it properly is not what Biden did last week.

With his poll numbers tanking and inflation soaring, Americans are rapidly losing patience with their bumbling president.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” is a sentiment that will boomerang on Biden among his own people.

Miranda Devine is in New York for 18 months to cover current affairs for The Daily Telegraph