President Joe Biden apparently gaffed on Friday while visiting US troops in Poland, stating that they would be witness to the courage of Ukrainians fighting against the Russian invasion “when you’re there,” confusing and alarming not only the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division but Americans in general.
“You’re going to see when you’re there, you’re going to see women, young people standing in the middle, in the front of a damn tank saying ‘I’m not leaving. I’m holding my ground,'” Biden told the soldiers.
Biden has repeatedly told Americans that we would not put boots on the ground in Ukraine to avoid triggering “World War III.” If the slip was not a gaffe then it would appear that he just told our troops the United States is going into Ukraine and going to war with Russia. The White House was quick to issue a statement claiming that Biden had not changed his stance.
“The president has been clear we are not sending US troops to Ukraine and there is no change in that position,” a Biden spokesman told the New York Post.
The United States now has more than 100,000 troops in Europe on NATO’s front lines and they are holding their breath over a potential hot war.
Biden also cringingly said while in Poland, “When you see a 30-year-old woman standing there in front of a tank with a rifle. I mean, talk about what happened in Tiananmen Square, that’s Tiananmen Square squared.”
The president is known for his gaffes and this is yet another one to add to that list.
However, it is getting harder and harder to tell what is a gaffe and what is an alarming portent of coming action.
During a press conference in Belgium on Thursday Biden stated that the US response to Russian troops using chemical weapons “would depend on the nature of the use.” Then he alarmingly asserted that the US would respond “in-kind.” On board Air Force One, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan informed reporters that the comment was not a threat but it sure sounded like one.
“The United States has no intention of using chemical weapons, period, under any circumstance,” Sullivan claimed.
As for Biden justifying why he would not cross the border to Kyiv, he had a reason for that too. He claimed he wanted to cross the Polish border into Ukraine, but “they will not let me.” Biden did not say exactly who told him he wasn’t allowed to cross the border according to the New York Post.
“I’m here in Poland to see firsthand the humanitarian crisis and quite frankly, part of my disappointment is that I can’t see it firsthand like I have in other places,” Biden asserted at a briefing on humanitarian operations.
“They will not let me, understandably, I guess, cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine,” he noted, seated next to Polish President Andrzej Duda
.
Biden also once again called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” at the briefing according to ABC News.
“The single most important thing that we can do from the outset is to keep the democracies united in our opposition and our effort to curtail the devastation that is occurring at the hands of a man who I quite frankly think is a war criminal,” he declared, flanked by Duda and USAID Administrator Samantha Powers. “I think it will meet the legal definition of that as well.”