During Wednesday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to explain why President Biden believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “rational actor,” instead pointing to Biden’s long career as a senator and then vice president as evidence that he “knows [foreign policy] very well.”
Biden made the claim during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, saying that Putin “is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly” before seemingly contradicting himself moments later by saying Putin was “irrational.”
“The President’s assessment or evaluation that President Putin is a rational actor who made a bad strategic decision — that term carries weight in the nuclear context. What — what’s that based on — the idea that he’s still a rational actor in the broader context of things? Is that an intelligence assessment, the President’s opinion — how do we view that?” a reporter asked.
“Well, as you know, the President, when it comes to foreign policy and when it comes to his relationship with leaders, he was a senator for 36 years and he was a Vice President for 8 years. This is a place that — an arena, if you will, that he knows very well,” Jean-Pierre responded.
It should be noted that former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who worked alongside Biden as he served under the Obama administration, criticized Biden for being “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Gates has since doubled down on that statement.
Jean-Pierre continued by saying Biden was “very clear” in his contradictory statements. She added, “What he said was Putin was a rational actor who — who badly miscalculated. And we’ve talked about why he badly miscalculated. If you look at how strong the NATO Alliance is — Putin thought he would break that up.”
“And it was a miscalculation because what he has seen is a stronger NATO, what he is seeing is a strong West, and what he is seeing is a coalition that has — that we have never seen before as far as the strength of the countries coming together to support Ukraine. And — and that has been the case all along,” she concluded. “And so, that’s what he was talking about. That’s the context that he was leaning into. And so, I will leave those words — let his comments stand.”