President Joe Biden recently said thst he does not know whether former President Donald Trump would have tipped off Russian President Vladimir Putin to last week’s mutiny if he were still president.
Biden appeared on Thursday’s Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace for an extremely rare live in-studio interview.
During their discussion, Wallace mentioned the brief mutiny that occurred last week in Russia, where the head of the Wagner Group mercenary outfit called for a revolt after he claimed a Russian strike killed some of his soldiers. The Wagner Group has been a key part of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Wallace asked Biden what he knew before the mutiny, if anything:
WALLACE: Can you tell us what you knew ahead of time what happened in Russia?
BIDEN: I can’t tell you that ahead of–we knew things ahead of time.
WALLACE: Did you worry that Trump might’ve tipped him off if he’d still been president?
BIDEN: Oh God, I don’t know. I don’t think about that very often.
Biden went on to say, “But look, all kidding aside” before touting his cooperation with NATO countries and others to help aid Ukraine.
“My staff pointed out to me, I have around about 180 hours with these heads of state because they look to us,” he said. “Putin has one objective: split the West. If he did that, we are in real trouble.”
Trump has long expressed admiration for Putin and other autocrats. Quite infamously during a joint press conference in 2018, Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence community, which said Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
“President Putin says it’s not Russia,” Trump said in response to a question about election interference. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.” He later tried to walk back those comments.
