U.S. President Joe Biden's latest gaffe on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin reverberated instantly around the world, sparking an administration rush to course-correct and risks scrambling United States' efforts to rally a united front on the Ukraine conflict.
"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden told a crowd in Poland's capital Warsaw after condemning the Russian president's monthlong war in Ukraine. Biden cast Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a battle in a much broader conflict between democracy and autocracy.
"The battle for democracy could not conclude and did not conclude with the end of the Cold War," Biden said. "Over the last 30 years, the forces of autocracy have revived all across the globe."
The remark came as Biden wound up a forceful speech on Saturday capping what had been a widely praised European visit, aimed at presenting a determined front against Russia's invasion.
His ad-libbed words about Putin remaining in power caught even U.S. advisors off guard, representing a stark departure from oft-stated American policy.
The White House sprung immediately into action, clarifying within minutes that Biden was not advocating a "regime change" in Russia.
But the comments by Biden – who hours earlier called Putin a "butcher" – drew predictable fury from Moscow, raised eyebrows in allied countries and sent the president's advisors into high gear to mollify the criticism.
Biden's point, Blinken said, was that "Putin cannot be empowered to wage war, or engage in aggression against Ukraine, or anyone else."
The choice of Russia's leader, Blinken said, is "up to the Russians."
Biden delivered "a good speech," Risch told CNN, with "a horrendous gaffe right at the end of it."
"My gosh, I wish they would keep him on script."
Not everyone saw the remark, however undiplomatic, as carrying an unstated threat – or in fact as a gaffe at all.
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said on Twitter that Biden's words needed to be read with nuance.
"Biden expressed what billions around the world and millions inside Russia also believe. He did not say that the U.S. should remove him from power. There is a difference."
But multiple experts in the United States and abroad weighed in with criticism.
Richard Haass, an American diplomat who heads the Council on Foreign Relations, said Biden had "made a difficult situation more difficult and a dangerous situation more dangerous."
"Putin will see it as confirmation of what he's believed all along," Haass said on Twitter. "Bad lapse in discipline that runs risk of extending the scope and duration of the war."
Equally stern, Francois Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said American leaders would do better not to "shoot off their mouths."
Following are reactions to Biden's remark on Saturday that Putin "cannot remain in power."
"That's not for Biden to decide," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Reuters. "The president of Russia is elected by Russians."
Peskov later told Russia's RBC that Biden was clearly "the victim of many misconceptions."
"This speech – and the passages which concern Russia – is astounding, to use polite words," Peskov said. "He doesn't understand that the world is not limited to the United States and most of Europe."
"I think the president, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else," Blinken said on Sunday during a visit to Jerusalem.
"As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia – or anywhere else, for that matter."
"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region," the official said on Saturday after Biden's speech. "He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change."
"The president had spent the day visiting with the Ukrainian refugees. He went to the national stadium in Warsaw and literally met with hundreds of Ukrainians. He heard their heroic stories as they were fleeing Ukraine in the wake of Russia's brutal war in Ukraine. In the moment, I think that was a principled human reaction to the stories that he had heard that day," Julianne Smith, U.S. envoy to NATO, told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, before adding: "But no ... the U.S. does not have a policy of regime change in Russia. Full stop."
"I wouldn't use this type of wording because I continue to hold discussions with President Putin," French President Emmanuel Macron told France 3 TV channel in remarks aired on Sunday.
The French president said he was seeking to hold more talks with Putin regarding the situation in Ukraine as well as an initiative to help people leave the besieged city of Mariupol in the coming days.
"We want to stop the war that Russia has launched in Ukraine without escalation – that's the objective," he added, noting the objective is to obtain a cease-fire and the withdrawal of troops through diplomatic means.
"If this is what we want to do, we should not escalate things – neither with words or actions," he said.
We heard President Biden loud and clear, that the U.S. will aid and will be with Ukraine in this fight," Oksana Markorava, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., told NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"We clearly understand in Ukraine that anyone who's a war criminal, who attacks a neighboring country, who's doing all these atrocities together with all the Russians that are involved definitely cannot stay in power in a civilized world. Now, it's all up to all of us to stop Putin."
"This is how a weak and sick person behaves – psychiatrists will be able to explain his behavior better," Vyacheslav Volodin, chairperson of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, said on Saturday. "American citizens should be ashamed of their president."
