BBC News, in Delaware
Joe Biden told the BBC that the pressure of the Trump administration on Ukraine to abandon the territory to Russia is “modern appeasement” in an exclusive interview, the first since his departure from the White House.
Speaking on Monday in Delaware, he said that Russian President Vladimir Putin thought that Ukraine was part of Russia and that “anyone who thinks he was going to stop” if a territory is conceded within the framework of a peace agreement “is simply stupid”.
Biden, who spoke while the Allied nations mark the 80th anniversary of the day VE this week, said that he was concerned about the rupture of American-European relations under President Donald Trump, who, according to him, “would change modern history of the world”.
In a vast interview with the BBC Radio 4 Teday program, Biden was challenged in his own record on Ukraine as well as his decision to end his re -election offer in 2024 at the end of the race after a tripping debate concerning his physical form and plunged the Democratic Party in crisis.
The Director of Communications of the White House, Steven Cheung, published a link to the exclusive interview of Biden de la BBC on social networks, exploding the former president.
“Joe Biden is a total shame for this country and the office he occupied. He clearly lost all mental faculties and his managers thought that it would be a good idea for him to do an interview and mumble incoherent through each response,” said Cheung.
“Unfortunately, it looks like abuse.”
Biden abandoned less than four months before the November elections, and when he pushed if he should have left earlier and authorized more time for replacement to be chosen, he said: “I don’t think it would have been important. We left at a time when we had a good candidate.”
“Things have evolved so quickly that it made it difficult to move away. And it was a difficult decision,” he said. “I think it was the right decision. I think it was just a difficult decision.”
Asked about the current treatment of the American allies administration, the former president sentenced Trump calls to the United States to take over the Panama canal, acquire Greenland and make Canada on the 51st state.
“What’s going on here? What president never speaks like that? It is not who we are,” he said. “We are a question of freedom, democracy, opportunities, no confiscation.”
In Ukraine, Biden was challenged to know if he has given enough support to kyiv to make sure they could win the war rather than resisting a large -scale invasion of Russia. For three years of fighting, his white house has moved to the use of weapons provided by the United States and has raised certain restrictions over time.
“We gave them everything they needed to provide for their independence, and we were ready to respond, more aggressively, if Putin moved again,” he said.
Biden was also asked about the comments of the Trump administration suggesting that kyiv must abandon a territory in order to conclude a peace agreement that would end the fighting.
The American vice-president, JD Vance, recently presented the American vision of a peace plan in Ukraine, saying that he “would gender the territorial lines … near where they are today”.
He said that Ukraine and Russia “should both abandon some of the territories they currently have.” Defense secretary Pete Hegseth echoes this message, saying that a return to the borders of Ukraine before 2014 is “unrealistic”.
“This is modern appeasement,” said Biden on Monday, a reference to the policy of former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who asked in the late 1930s to appease Adolf Hitler’s requests in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid a total catastrophic war in Europe.
He also expressed his concern that “Europe will lose its confidence in the certainty of America and the management of America”.
The leaders of the continent, he added, “wondered, well, what should I do now? … Can I count on the United States? Will they be there?”
Trump said he expects Russia to keep the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, and last month he accused Ukraine Chief Volodymyr Zelensky of harming the peace negotiations when Zelensky rejected suggestion.
Reports suggest recent American proposals for a colony of truce Include not only the formal recognition of the United States of Crimea as part of Russia, but also de facto American recognition of other regions occupied in Ukraine. The White House has not publicly confirmed the details.
“I have no favorites. I don’t want to have favorites. I want to agree,” Trump said last month when he is questioning about the recognition of Russian sovereignty on Crimea.
“Yes of course, [the Ukrainians] are angry that they were invaded, ” VP Vance told Fox News last week. “But will we continue to lose thousands and thousands of soldiers for a few kilometers of territory in this way or like that?”
The pressure to give in land does not only come from Washington, with The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, saying to the BBC last month This Ukraine may temporarily abandon the territory.
Discussing Putin, Biden said: “I just don’t understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide that he will take important parts of land that are not his, that it will satisfy him. I do not quite understand.”
He also said that he feared that certain NATO alliance countries that Russia Border could “say that we have to make housing” in Putin if Ukraine ultimately abandoned land.
Trump has long resisted the pursuit of the level of American military support that Biden brought to Ukraine, arguing that his ultimate goal is to end the bloodshed. He has already said that Zelensky had played Biden “like a violin”.
The tensions between the White House and the Ukrainian chef exploded for the public in February, when Trump and Vance reprimanded Zelensky and asked that he manifests more gratitude for years of American support at an extraordinary television meeting at the Oval Office.
“I found it in a way under America in the way that took place,” said Biden about Reunion.
Trump and his senior officials have repeatedly criticized European countries not to spend enough for their own defense and rely too much on American support.
The United States is on the sidelines the largest donor in Ukraine, but the combined European countries have spent more money, according to the Kiel Institute, support for a German reflection group in kyiv.
“I do not understand how they do not understand that there is force in the alliances,” said Biden about the Trump administration on Monday. “There are advantages … This saves us money overall.”
When asked about questions about The first 100 days of President Trump in powerWho has seen a whirlwind of executive shares as well as scanning cuts at the size and expenses of the federal government, Biden praised his own file and sought to make a striking contrast between when he left his duties and now.
“Our economy increased. We were advancing in a direction where the stock market was increasing. We were in a situation where we expanded our influence in the world in a positive way, increasing trade,” he said about the state of the country when he left the White House in January.
Trump, on the other hand, says that he is leading a necessary overhaul of relations in the world with the United States, rebalancing trade, controlling illegal immigration and making the government more effective. He celebrated the 100 -day milestone with a triumphant speech Last week. What does Biden do from the start of Trump 2.0?
“I’m going to let history judge this,” he said. “I don’t see anything triumphant.”
Additional Kirsty Mackenzie and Gareth Evans reports
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