Head of U.S. European Command: Actually, We’re Not Training the Ukrainians Like Biden Said

The White House continues to assert that President Biden exclaiming, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power!” does not mean that Biden believes that Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power.

Q: And, Kate, on the subject of the President’s remarks in Poland about President Putin: Obviously, yesterday, he tried to suggest that there was a distinction between his personal views of what he thought was a moral outrage versus an official policy position on the part of the United States.

But you know full well something that candidate Joe Biden said virtually every day on the campaign trail, which is that the words of a president matter; that they can, as he often put it, lead a country into war.

Is he not living up to the standard that he set himself during the campaign?

MS. BEDINGFIELD:  Absolutely not.  I think the words of the President here were incredibly powerful.  He spoke personally about the moral outrage that he felt, which is shared by people all across the world.  It does not mean he’s articulating a change in policy.  It does not mean he’s laying out a change in U.S. policy.

In other words, the position of the U.S. government is that Vladimir Putin can stay in power, even though the president declared, with the whole world watching, that “this man cannot remain in power!”

The White House line is not only that Biden didn’t say what we all heard him say, he has no regrets about saying what he allegedly didn’t say:

Q: And you’ve spent some time with the President — last question, Kate — is he frustrated or does he regret that those words at the very end of the speech overshadowed a larger message, which obviously he put a lot of thought into in the days leading —

MS. BEDINGFIELD:  Absolutely not.  He spoke from the heart.  He, as he always does — as you know very well from having covered him for a long time, as many of you do, and as the American people know — he speaks from the heart.  He says what he feels.  And, no, he absolutely does not regret that in any way.

As for Biden’s statement yesterday that “We’re talking about helping train the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland,” the White House explanation is now that the U.S. is not training Ukrainian troops in Poland, but that U.S. troops and Ukrainian troops in Poland are simply having “regular interaction.”

Q: Jen did say clearly, last week, there are no U.S. training programs for Ukrainians outside of Ukraine — obviously not in Ukraine, but nowhere else either. I actually asked the question; that’s what she said — “no.” So the President, yesterday — and I’ve got his quote; he was very clear. He said when he was — when he had this chat with the U.S. troops, he said it was all about them “helping [to] train” Ukrainian troops that are in Poland. So are they training them in Poland or are they not training them in Poland?

MS. BEDINGFIELD: Well, as I said, there is regular interaction between Ukrainian soldiers in Poland and the U.S. troops that the President saw on the trip. There’s nothing — no further detail that I can add on that, except to say that there is regular interaction. As you saw, we were there near the border. And there’s regular interaction between those troops that he saw and Ukrainians.

For what it is worth, General Tod Wolters, the head of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Commander Europe, testified on Capitol Hill yesterday, “I do not believe that we are in the process of currently training military forces from Ukraine in Poland . . . There are liaisons that are there that are being given advice, and that’s different than [what] I think you’re referring to with respect [to] training.”

If Wolters is telling the truth, Biden wasn’t revealing a secret; he just has no idea what is going on, and what U.S. military forces are and aren’t doing. How reassuring!

Cleaning up after Joe Biden’s runaway mouth is a difficult and never-ending job.