President Joe Biden's comments while speaking to U.S. troops in Poland Friday, in which he told them that they would "see" the bravery of Ukrainians fighting off Russia "when you're there," might have been construed as a gaffe if he were a "normal president," former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell said on Newsmax Friday.
"I think that if we were talking about a normal president, most people would immediately see that as an early flag and a slip-up, but with Joe Biden, he's so weak and fumbling and mumbling that he makes these gaffes all the time," Grenell told Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "The media is kind of used to it. They shrug their shoulders, like Oh, that's old Uncle Joe."
But by the media dismissing such gaffes, they just allow them to continue, said Grenell, and "that's the heart and soul of the problem."
Biden told the members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, after eating lunch with them and posing for selfies, that they will see the Ukrainians' bravery firsthand, drawing attention after he's insisted all along that U.S. troops must remain out of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
"You're going to see when you're there, and some of you have been there, you're going to see women, young people standing in the middle in front of a damned tank just saying, 'I'm not leaving, I'm holding my ground,'" Biden told the troops, according to a video of his comments.
A White House official clarified that Biden's words did not mean he had changed his stance about deploying members of the military to Ukraine, but Grenell said such weaknesses are causing a situation around the world that was not present while President Donald Trump was in office.
"Trump really had this situation under control, and yet now we see [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un adding his name to the list of all of the other world leaders that are testing Joe Biden and making him move because there's weakness and they smell it, and they see it," Grenell said.
Biden, Grenell, added after watching a clip of the president's comments, is "unclear. Sometimes he wears a mask. Sometimes he doesn't. The troops aren't standing for him when he walks in the room. We see this as incredible weakness."
And such messaging is "so much of a mess," it should be no surprise that other countries are taking advantage, said Grenell.
"We could list all of the different countries and their leaders that are looking at the United States right now and beginning to make moves and go on offense," he added. "We have a crisis right now in the United States because our leadership looks incredibly weak, and he is acting incredibly weak."
Biden has also fumbled the message on other parts of the Russia-Ukraine situation even before the hostilities started, including dropping Trump's sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, said Grenell, adding that gave Putin a "green light" to move into Ukraine, much like when President Barack Obama and his vice president, Biden, were in office and the Russian leader decided to annex Crimea.
Biden also gave a dangerous signal in a Thursday press conference, when he said it was up to Ukraine to figure out if it wants to swap land or redo borders as part of an agreement, said Grenell.
"That's a huge mistake," he said. "The United States should say we do not want to rewrite the borders of Europe ... he literally gave Russia a green light to grab land, and it's now up to Ukraine to decide if they want to swap land for peace. That is a terrible, terrible message."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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