Republicans have been forced to sit back and watch what most analysts believe is Biden's competent handling of the NATO alliance and his efforts to build a united front of harsh sanctions against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Apart from carping about the President's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which they said emboldened Putin, the GOP has not really found a way to dent Biden politically over the war in Ukraine. The party has, however, lambasted the President's claims that high gasoline prices and inflation are Russia's fault — or "Putin's price hike," as Biden likes to say.
But the President's remarks in Poland about Putin no longer having the right to lead Russia offered Republicans an opening that was too tempting to miss. Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, really laid into the President.
"Whoever wrote that speech did a good job for him. But my gosh, I wish they would keep him on script," the Idaho Republican said, lamenting the "horrendous gaffe" at the end.
"I think most people who don't deal in the lane of foreign relations don't realize that those nine words that he uttered would cause the kind of eruption that they did. But anytime you say or even, as he did, suggest that the policy was regime change, it's going to cause a huge problem. This administration has done everything they can to stop escalating. There's not a whole lot more you can do to escalate than to call for regime change."
Sen. Rob Portman also criticized Biden, though in slightly more temperate tones. "I think all of us believe the world would be a better place without Vladimir Putin. But second, that's not the official US policy. And by saying that — that regime change is our strategy — effectively it plays into the hands of the Russian propagandists and plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin," the Ohio Republican said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"So it was a mistake. And the President recognized that and the White House has walked it back. By the way, they had to walk back three other comments he made as well. But look, we're in a crisis. We're in a war situation. And so clarity is incredibly important. And we need to be sure that we are also clear with our NATO allies, because that's how we are stronger," Portman added.
It was left to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to clear things up, yet again, during a visit to Jerusalem.
"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. "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,"
"In this case, as it is in any case, it's up to the people of the country in question. It is up to the Russian people."
