Former President Joe Biden accused current President Donald Trump of “modern-day appeasement” to Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin in his first interview since leaving the White House.
Speaking to BBC journalist Nick Robinson, Biden launched several attacks on the current administration and said it was “foolish” of Trump to think Putin would be satisfied by permanently gaining the territory it already invaded.
“I just don’t understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide he’s going to take significant portions of land that aren’t his and that’s gonna satisfy him, I don’t quite understand,” Biden said.
“What this man wants to do is reestablish the Warsaw Pact — he can’t stand the fact that the Russian dictatorship that he runs, that the Soviet Union has collapsed. And anybody that thinks he’s just gonna stop is foolish,” he added.
Biden remarks came on the mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, which marks the Allied victory in Europe at the end of World War II.
The former president seemed anxious about the current affairs in the United States as well as passionate. He expressed his concern that he feels there is now a more grave threat to democracy than at any time since WWII.
“Look at the number of European leaders wondering, ‘What do I do now? What’s the best route for me to take? Can I rely on the United States, are they gonna be there?’ Instead of democracies expanding around the world, they are receding,” he said.
Biden slammed the Oval Office blow up between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February was “beneath America”.
“They way we talk about the Gulf of America, or we need to take back Panama, maybe we need to acquire Greenland, maybe Canada. What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that?” Biden said.
When pressed if Trump was acting more like a king than an American President, Biden did not really give an answer but at the same time, did.
“I’d rather not comment. He’s not behaving like a Republican president,” he said.
