President Joe Biden has long been known to utter gaffes, sometimes of such significance that they occasionally require corrections or explanations from his aides and staffers.
It has now been reported that one such instance occurred in 2022 when Biden made an unscripted call for regime change in Russia to oust President Vladimir Putin from power during a speech, only for him to then be angry at his staffers for correcting his admitted mistake, according to the Western Journal.
That revelation was shared within a new book that is set to be released next week and purportedly documents in detail the major events of President Biden's first two years in the White House.
According to a March 2022 CNN report, President Biden traveled to Warsaw, Poland, to deliver a major speech in the immediate wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and proclaimed of Russian President Putin, "For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power."
That significant remark was widely interpreted as a call for regime change and Putin's ouster and had not been part of the prepared script for Biden's speech, according to the White House, which swiftly issued a corrective statement to downplay and walk back what the president had said.
"The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region," the White House insisted at that time. "He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change."
Yet, despite the fact that the quick correction by the White House likely forestalled a potential conflict with Russia over President Biden's unscripted rhetorical bombast, he was nonetheless quite displeased at what had occurred, according to The Atlantic's Franklin Foer in his new book, "The Last Politician," which documents Biden's first two years in office.
An excerpt from that book about the March 2022 incident was shared exclusively with Axios, which reported that Foer wrote that Biden "sounded as if he were calling for regime change in Russia" after his proclamation that Putin mustn't remain in power.
"After delivering the speech that might have earned him the credit he deserved and craved, his improvisation became the headline," the author wrote of the president. "Biden instantly knew that the White House would have to clarify his mistake. By the time Biden piled into the motorcade ... his aides had released a statement walking back his sentence."
"Suddenly, the press wasn't marveling at his rhetoric or his diplomatic triumphs; it was back to describing him as a blowhard lacking in self-control," he continued. "Biden left for home, ending his triumphalist tour, feeling sorry for himself."
"He knew that he had erred, but then resented his aides for creating the impression that they had cleaned up his mess," Foer added. "Rather than owning his failure, he fumed to his friends about how he was treated like a toddler. Was John Kennedy ever babied like that?"
While that book excerpt may seem to contradict the media's typical portrayal of President Biden as a kindly old grandpa, it appears to align with a separate report from Axios in July about Biden's quick temper and tendency to explode with profanity-laced tirades against aides and staffers who he perceives as having crossed or undermined him.
To be sure, few if any of Biden's current or former staffers would publicly confirm the allegations that Biden is an angry old man with a short fuse behind closed doors, but several were more than willing to share the details anonymously about his expletive-laden outbursts in private meetings.
Yet, even as Biden's true personality is kept largely hidden by the White House and media sycophants, flashes of that temper have been glimpsed on numerous occasions in public, such as several instances over the past few years where he has lashed out against reporters asking legitimate questions -- most especially Fox News reporter Peter Doocy, who has repeatedly been belittled and cursed out publicly for merely doing his job.
