Once-Admired Biden Rebuked by BBC for 'Dangerous' Russian Regime Change Gaffe

Jack MontgomeryMarch 28, 2022

U.S. President Joe Biden has earned a rebuke from the once-admiring British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for his “dangerous” remarks on Russian regime change.

President Biden, once popular with the left-liberal-leaning British and European media, earned a thinly-veiled dressing down from the notionally impartial BBC for recent “series of unscripted remarks that have upped the temperature of US-Russia relations to near boiling point.”

The 79-year-old Democrat’s biggest gaffe took place at a speech in Poland, in which he gave every appearance of issuing an unambiguous call for regime change when he said of Russia’s Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The comment was reportedly not in Biden’s prepared speech, and sent White House officials scrambling to “clarify” his remarks, claiming somewhat unconvincingly that his “point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region” and that he “was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

When later confronted on the issue in person by a reporter who shouted “Mr President, do you want Putin removed? Mr President, were you calling for regime change?” the U.S. leader had to reply “No” before scurrying into the presidential limousine.

“I would not use [Biden’s] words,” Macron said, insisting “everything must be done to stop the situation from escalating” to achieve “first a ceasefire and then the total withdrawal of [Russian] troops by diplomatic means” https://t.co/crtVryYG6L

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 27, 2022

“The speed with which the U.S. issued its ‘clarification’ — later echoed by [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken — suggests the U.S. understands the danger inherent in Mr Biden’s words,” the BBC observed in an article analysing the fiasco.

“There’s a line between condemning a nation’s leader — the sometimes overheated rhetoric of diplomacy — and calling for his removal. It was a line both the Americans and the Soviets respected even at the height of the Cold War. And it is a line that Mr Biden had apparently crossed,” the BBC observed.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s response to Biden’s ill-chosen words was sharp, with a spokesman snapping that it was “not for Biden to decide” who governs Russia.

The President of the State Duma branded the U.S. leader “weak, sick, and unhappy” and suggested he should “undergo a medical examination,” with the head of Roscosmos — Russia’s equivalent of NASA — similarly quipping that the retraction of the regime change remarks had been issued by the “White House Medical Unit”.

The BBC noted that Biden’s latest gaffe had caused ructions in Europe — with France’s Emmanuel Macron, in particular, saying he would not have used the Democrat’s words and that they risked undermining peace talks — and that he had a history of having “derailed past presidential bids and occasionally frustrated Obama administration officials when he was vice-president” with unguarded comments.

“[I]f the Russian leader believes his power is at stake, and believes the US is not-so-secretly making that an objective of its efforts, the turn the crisis takes from here may not be one toward peace,” the broadcaster cautioned.

Biden’s quip prompted administration officials to scramble and walk back his comment, in an effort to reassure the world that the United States was not calling for regime change in Russia. https://t.co/2zMYYBvr3Z

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 27, 2022