Ukraine: loose talk from a president under the microscope
The comment in Warsaw, which drew a stinging response from Moscow over the weekend and overshadowed days of painstaking work to rally European allies against Russia, was not his first gaffe of the Ukraine crisis.
Biden, 79, appeared to throw Ukraine under the bus before the Russian invasion, with a loose remark in January that a “minor incursion” might not merit a powerful international response. With Russian troops massed near the Ukrainian border, Biden appeared to suggest that the consequences would depend on the extent of Russia’s aggression.
President Zelensky said at the time: “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.”
There are concerns that the delicacy and attention to detail required for diplomacy may be beyond Biden’s folksy manner.
The White House had to smooth over another Biden gaffe in October when the president was asked if he would “vow to protect Taiwan” if China attacked the self-governed republic, which Beijing claims as its own. In an apparent departure from Washington’s long-stated policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, the president replied: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”
Beijing warned that Biden “should act and speak cautiously on the Taiwan issue . . . so as not to seriously damage China-US relations”, and the White House tried to “walk back” the remarks, insisting that there was “no change in our policy” on Taiwan.
Biden has declined to take a cognitive test since taking office, or to release the results if he has, despite having mocked President Trump’s claim on the campaign trail in 2020 to have taken a mental exam and “aced it.” Trump said: “I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.”
Biden’s medical team said in November that the president was healthy but had developed a “less fluid” gait as a result of his age. However, a poll last month, before Biden’s first state of the union address, found that 54 per cent of Americans no longer believed he had the “mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president”.
About 40 Republicans demanded that Biden take a cognitive test and share the results.
Biden responded angrily to a CBS reporter who asked in 2020 if he would follow Trump by taking the same mental fitness exam, suggesting that the correspondent, who is black, was “a junkie”.
Biden has a history of clumsy racial remarks that has dogged his career, and even wrecked his previous presidential campaigns. In 2007, when they were rivals for the Democratic nomination he called Barack Obama “the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.”
Trump, who referred to Biden as “Sleepy Joe”, has continued to claim that his rival is suffering a sharp mental decline, as the two eye a rematch for the White House in 2024. “Joe should take that test because something is going on, and I say this with respect,” Trump said in 2020.
The Times
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President Biden’s long career has been littered with gaffes but his comment that President Putin “cannot remain in power” may be the most serious. It is certain to revive critics’ claims that the American president is suffering from serious cognitive decline.