Grandpa Simpson: I know what you mean, I had something very similar happen to me. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. I didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
Thank you for doing this, Mr. President. We appreciate your time. Busy moment. I'll dive right in. You're traveling next week to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day to commemorate a turning point in America's leadership with the free world. But the anniversary comes at a time when the US under your leadership has been unable to deter crises. First in Afghanistan, then Ukraine, Israel, and mounting tensions in the Far East. Is America still able to play the role of world power that it played in World War Two, and in the Cold War?
Biden: Yes, we're planning even more. We are, we are the world power. And what I inherited, as a consequence of the mistake that we made in Afghanistan is a—was not a loss in Afghanistan, excuse my cold. But I think that, look, I believe, I have a fundamentally different view than Mr. Trump has on a range of things. Number one: I really believe that we have a values-based as well as practical-based alliances around the world. And he, Trump, wanted to just abandon them. He says he's practical, one-on-one things he's doing.
Well, he didn't get much done. And so we end up in a situation where, when I came into, when I got sworn in, we were in a position where we didn't have—for example, there's a quote from Macron at the time saying that, in 2019, that Trump wants to eviscerate NATO. He thinks NATO is useless. And we have to rethink our entire relationship with the United States, they no longer lead the world.
I have that exact quote here. And they no longer lead the world and the transatlantic alliance has to be reexamined. And the interesting piece of that is you now have his former adviser John Bolton saying, he’s certain that the first thing Trump would do if he got reelected is get out of NATO completely.
And so I've always believed that there are two elements to American security, and the biggest element and, and our normative example, is our alliances, our alliances. We are—we have, compared to the rest of the world, we have put together the strongest alliance in the history of the world, number one. Number two, we're in a situation where we are able to move in a way that recognizes how much the world has changed and still lead the world. And it's our security. For example, the idea that if when Putin decided to go into Russia—I mean, he's gonna go from Russia into Ukraine—the reason why I cleared the intelligence so we can release the information we knew that he was going to attack, was to let the world know we were still in charge. We still know what's going on.
This, by the way is, if you haven't read it, you should. [Pulls out copy of speech Putin delivered on Feb. 21, 2022] It's the address to the Russian people on the Donbass problem on February 21, when Moscow was going in. And it lays out why I believe Trump—what he never understood—which is that Russia, he wasn’t just going into Moscow, I mean from Russia into Ukraine, for purposes of keeping them from having weapons, etc. He believes it is an essential part of Russia, from the beginning.
He has just laid out, straight out. He said, he said, ‘I would like to emphasize again, Ukraine is not a neighboring country of us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space…Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russia, Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians.’ And he goes on. He makes this whole speech about why it is part of reestablishing the Soviet Union.
Biden gave an evasive answer on the lack of deterrence under his administration because this is the strongest line of attack on Biden. He arguably has presided over the most cautious foreign policy of any American president since the end of WWII. I give Biden bonus points for mentioning “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” However, he failed to mention that the document is clearly a genocidal and imperialist screed. Of course, stating this outright would raise an uncomfortable question: why haven’t we acted with more urgency to support Ukraine?
So understanding Putin's aims, the world, the West, the United States, and you find yourselves facing a difficult situation in Ukraine. The war is stalled. Every day, an average of 42 Ukrainian civilians are killed or wounded. Is Russia's proposal for, to end the war in Ukraine, the best that Ukraine can hope for at this point?
A Russian proposal to end the war? It’s flabbergasting to think that some people think Russia wants to end the war. At best, Russia would propose a temporary ceasefire only to rearm for another crack at Ukraine.
Biden: No, it's not. And by the way, I don't know why you skip over all that’s happened in the meantime. The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated. Number one.
While it is true that the initial Russian invading force had been wiped out, the number of Russian troops in Ukraine is materially higher now (even if they are, on average, of lower quality).
Number two, NATO is considerably stronger than it was when I took office. I put it together. Not only did I reestablish the fact that it was the strongest alliance in the history of the world, I was able to expand it. While I was in one of the G7 meetings in Europe. when I got back I called on the President of Finland because when I had met earlier in the year with Putin, he said he wanted to see the Finlandization of NATO. I told him, he's gonna get not the Finlandization, the Natoization of Finland. And everybody thought, including you guys, thought I was crazy.
And guess what? I did it. I did it. And we're now the strongest nation. We have the strongest alliance in all of America, all of history.
Does Biden deserve credit for NATO expansion? Or does Putin deserve credit for NATO expansion?
In the meantime, what we keep skipping over is what the consequence of the success of Russia in Ukraine would be. That's why I brought this along. You probably haven't read it. Most people haven't read it. He says this is part of reestablishing the Soviet Union. That's what this is all about. It wasn't just about taking part of—He wanted, he wanted to go back to the, to the days when there was NATO and there was that other outfit that Poland, everybody belonged to. So that’s what it was about. And in the meantime, what happened was, we were able to—and by the way, we spent a lot of money in Ukraine, but Europe has spent more money than the United States has, collectively. Europe has spent more money in taking on Russia.
Kudos for making the point that Europe as a whole has been more generous with Ukraine aid. I wish he had more clearly explained that most of the money is not spent in Ukraine. We’re mostly giving Ukraine our highly depreciated and outdated military equipment and then buying and producing new equipment (in the USA) to restock our inventory.
So what is the endgame though in Ukraine and what does peace look like there?
Biden: Peace looks like making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine.
It’s a little late for that.
That's what peace looks like. And it doesn't mean NATO, they are part of NATO, it means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future. But it is not, if you notice, I was the one when—and you guys did report it at TIME—the one that I was saying that I am not prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.
It should not, it is not—I spent a month in Ukraine when I was a Senator and Vice President. There was significant corruption. There was a circumstance that was really difficult. And so, the point is, though, that if we ever let Ukraine go down, mark my words: you'll see Poland go, and you'll see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those, they're going to make their own accommodations.
It’s unclear what Biden’s goal is. Does Biden want Ukraine to reclaim its territory back to 1991 borders? Or does he want a stalemate? Because his actions to date seem to point to a desire to only bring Ukraine to parity with Russian forces.
I want to switch to Israel. But on that last point, is there a danger that NATO is on a slippery slope to war with Ukraine—with Russia, as things stand?
Biden: No, we're on a slippery slope for war if we don't do something about Ukraine. It’s just not gonna…anyway…
Biden had the start of a great response and then fumbled it away. Maybe Biden can phone a friend next time….