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Looks someone wentfull Tater
Biden's off-the-cuff remark on Putin sends shock waves on dramatic final day of trip
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By Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 1:40 PM ET, Sun March 27, 2022
Warsaw, Poland (CNN)At nearly the same moment President Joe Biden declared him a "butcher," Vladimir Putin's missiles began falling in Lviv, Ukraine.
Sending black smoke and flames billowing into the air, and injuring at least five people, the strikes on a fuel depot pierced what had been relative calm in the western hub city that had seen relatively little of the war that has engulfed the nation.
The target hardly seemed coincidental. Biden was 250 miles away, visiting Ukrainian refugees in bitter cold at Poland's national stadium. He heard pleas from young mothers to pray for the men husbands, fathers, brothers they had left behind.
"We Ukrainian mothers are ready to strangle (Putin) with our bare hands," said a woman whose son remained to fight. Gathering up a small girl wearing a pink coat and pigtails, Biden told her he wanted to take her home.
8 takeaways from Biden's trip to Europe
8 takeaways from Biden's trip to Europe
When he returned to his hotel, aides briefed Biden on the strikes in Lviv. A few hours later, propelled by heartache and anger, Biden walked into the courtyard of an old Polish castle to declare the Russian President "cannot remain in power."
The very final words Biden would utter on his last-minute swing through Europe ended up being the most consequential, reverberating widely as Air Force One departed for Washington. They surprised his aides, many of whom spent hours honing the text of a speech viewed by the White House as a significant moment for Biden's presidency. The line Biden uttered wasn't in what they wrote.
Gathered backstage at the castle, White House officials hastily issued a clarification one of several on this trip alone to say Biden wasn't calling for regime change.But not before the Kremlin issued its own affronted response, saying Russia's ruler is "not to be decided by Mr. Biden."
The administration's downplaying of Biden's remark continued Sunday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying from Israel, "I think the President, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else."
The series of events that unfolded here Saturday afternoon placed into sharp relief the highly unsettled atmosphere that pervades Europe as Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its second month. A display of aggression from Putin in the borderlands of Ukraine was followed by an offhand yet forcefully delivered suggestion from Biden that Russians find another leader.
Bash presses NATO rep. on walking back Biden's unscripted Putin declaration
Bash presses NATO rep. on walking back Biden's unscripted Putin declaration 02:41
"He went to the National Stadium in Warsaw and literally met with hundreds of Ukrainians. He heard their heroic stories as they were fleeing Ukraine in the wake of Russia's brutal war in Ukraine. In the moment, I think that was a principled human reaction to the stories that he had heard that day," Biden's ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
Biden's view of Putin had been growing increasingly dark over the past month, according to officials, and his language has sharpened in describing a "pure thug," "murderous dictator," "war criminal" and, after visiting refugees at the stadium, a "butcher."
His aides have said Biden has been hoping to avoid the Cold War, Washington versus Moscow dynamic he believes Putin desires. Instead, he left Europe more directly at odds with the Russian leader than ever.
Whether that was his intention seemed unclear. The clarification the White House issued was at least the third time on Biden's trip a White House official felt obliged to clean up remarks the President made that appeared, on their own, startling.
As he was hailing the heroism of the Ukrainians, Biden told US troops "you're going to see when you're there" – even though he's vowed American forces won't be entering the conflict directly. Afterward, a spokesman said nothing had changed: "The President has been clear we are not sending US troops to Ukraine."