The Show Notes: Biden's Europe Mess, Dems Polling Collapse, & Trump in Georgia
I am about to start hour 1 of 15 hours of radio this week. I prepare for this every morning by pouring through hundreds of sites to find the stories that matter. Now, I make it available to you.
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Clip of the day:
Biden’s Europe Mess
I wrote extensively about Biden’s Europe trip. You should go read it here. In short, it was a disaster. Here’s an excerpt from my morning piece:
If you haven’t followed along on his European tour, first the President of the United States suggested American forces were going to go to Ukraine. The White House walked back what was a somewhat muddied statement.
Then the President was asked what the response would be if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine. His response? “The United States would respond in kind.” The White House had to walk back that the President did not actually mean that and we would not use chemical weapons.
Finally, in his major speech at the end of the week, President Biden declared Vladimir V. Putin, President of Russia, could not be allowed to remain in power. In an ad-libbed line not in his original text, Biden called for Russian regime change. Members of the press first had an orgasmic response, comparing the line to Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
But then the White House, unlike the Reagan White House, scrambled to walk it all back and clarify that Biden did not, in fact, mean to call for regime change.
This is not a partisan attack on Biden. The trip was widely viewed as a disaster. Here are more headlines:
Biden claims Putin cannot stay in power. - CNBC
Joe Biden denies the US is seeking regime change in Russia. - FT
Biden’s Russian-regime-change call is the perfect symbol of his foreign-policy follies. - NY Post
Biden’s remarks on Putin stirs anxiety among western allies. - WSJ
Biden’s Putin remark pushes US-Russia relations closer to collapse. - Washington Post
Our friends at RNC research have the best montage:
Ukraine Update
Russian rockets rained down across most major cities in Ukraine as the two countries prepare to hold face-to-face peace talks. Ukraine is prepared to give up 1) pursuing NATO membership status and 2) developing nuclear weapons. Delegations from both countries are prepared to meet in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Here’s more from the Financial Times:
Over the weekend Russian forces continued to assault strategic locations while regrouping around the capital Kyiv and continuing a street-by-street advance on the devastated port of Mariupol. Referring to merciless tactics employed by Russia in Syria, Jean-Yves Le Drian, French foreign minister, compared Mariupol to “a second Aleppo”.
Putin’s invasion has yet to take a major Ukrainian city and has been beset by poor planning, low morale and supply problems. In an update on Monday, Ukraine’s military claimed it had repelled Russian attempts to “break the defence” of Kyiv from the north-west and east. A UK intelligence update said Russia had made “no significant” advances since Sunday but had “gained most ground” in Mariupol.
More Ukraine headlines:
Russia’s last independent newspaper closed shop. - NYT
How Russia’s central bank engineered the Rubble rebound. - WSJ
Ukraine retakes the town of Irpin from Russia. - Twitter
Russia shifts focus to grind Ukraine’s army in the east. - AP News
160,000 remain stuck in Mariupol. - Fox News
The Russian stock market continues to slide. - AP News
Trump Goes To Georgia
Donald Trump held a rally in Georgia to save his hand-picked candidate David Perdue. The crowd was much smaller than expected but the message was exactly