President Joe Biden on Monday stood by his comment over the weekend that Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t remain in power, saying he had been expressing his “moral outrage,” not signaling a policy change.
“I was expressing my outrage. He shouldn’t remain in power, just like bad people shouldn’t continue to do bad things. But it doesn’t mean we have a fundamental policy to do anything to take Putin down in any way,” Biden told reporters following a White House event on the federal budget.
“I’m not walking anything back,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is, I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man, which is just brutality.”
Biden’s comments came in response to concern raised over an ad-libbed line in a speech in Poland on Saturday, in which he seemed to suggest he was pushing for regime change in Russia. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” he said, referring to Putin.
The White House issued a statement shortly after the speech that said Biden was “not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change” but rather saying Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”
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