Early on the morning of the 16th Beijing time, during the meeting between U.S. President Trump and Russian President Putin, as well as the subsequent media interview with Trump, an 82-year-old man was unexpectedly mentioned by both heads of state – and both believed that the conflict in Ukraine was closely related to him.
This man is Joe Biden, the former President of the United States.
Although the focus of the meeting between Putin and Trump, as well as the subsequent analysis by many media outlets and experts, was on how to bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine, the joint ridicule of Biden by both Trump and Putin during their meeting and Trump’s subsequent interview with Fox News also attracted a lot of attention in the U.S. public opinion.
Previously, at their joint meeting, Russian President Putin first criticized Biden without naming him, saying that if Trump had been the U.S. President in 2022 instead of the government that ignored Russia’s appeals, Russia would not have launched a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Although Trump did not respond to Putin’s criticism at the meeting, he simply complained about the “colluding with Russia” allegations made by his political opponents, saying that this “political hoax” made it difficult for him to work with Russia, he did not hesitate to express his pleasure with Putin’s statement during his interview with Fox News after the meeting. After all, Trump had made several statements before that if he had been president at that time, the Russia-Ukraine conflict would not have broken out, so Putin’s words amounted to confirming his views.
Moreover, Trump also bluntly attacked Biden during the interview, saying “Biden has been a terrible president in many aspects, and he should not have let this happen.”
In the U.S. public opinion, while Trump’s opponents believed that Putin, who once served as a spy, was influencing Trump’s emotions by “playing to his strengths,” Trump supporters generally believed that Putin’s words further proved Trump’s “correctness” and “strength”.
For example, on social media X in the United States, many pro-Trump influencers believed that Putin’s statement was an “absolute victory” for Trump, as it proved that Trump was “much stronger” than Biden and the Democratic Party, while Biden was a “loser.”
Some Trump opponents attacked Trump’s “weakness” by pointing to Obama and Biden’s “tough” stance against Putin, but Trump supporters argued that it was under Obama and Biden’s administration that Putin launched his attack on Ukraine – not during Trump’s term.
Public records showed that before Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine in 2022, Russian President Putin had tried to communicate with then-U.S. President Biden about the situation in Ukraine and expressed strong opposition to Ukraine joining NATO. However, the Biden administration ignored Russia’s concerns and even warned Putin not to act against Ukraine in a tough tone. Ultimately, Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24th, 2022.