The Morning Jolt, today, about Biden declaring, repeatedly and on the record that Russia was committing genocide in Ukraine: “This is one of those presidential statements that is so significant, I waited for the White House staff to offer the now-traditional ‘what the president meant to say was’ correction.”
I didn’t wait long enough. Today, Biden administration officials did it again:
“President Biden spoke from his heart,” Victoria Nuland, US under secretary of state for political affairs, says of President Biden calling what’s happening in Ukraine “genocide.”
Says she believes that’s ultimately what will be determined legally as well.
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) April 13, 2022
This is also what they said when Biden declared, “for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power!” White House staffers insisted the president was not calling for regime change, he was just speaking from his heart — blowing off steam — and U.S. policy remained the same.
Besides being confusing — sometimes what President Biden says reflects the position of the U.S government, and sometimes he’s just a commentator whose views have no bearing on what the official U.S. government policy is — Biden’s increasingly frequent heart-speaking is further infuriating and even ironic because Biden repeatedly said 0n the campaign trail in 2020, “the words of a president matter.” Now Biden’s staff is insisting that the president’s words may not really matter, depending upon the circumstances. Sometimes the president is announcing what his policies are, and sometimes Grandpa starts rambling again, pay it no mind.
As today’s Jolt noted, if what is happening in Ukraine constitutes genocide, then the administration doesn’t have any excuses for any half-measures in response.