Former President Joe Biden said President Trump was pursuing “modern-day appeasement” of Russia, claiming in his first broadcast interview since leaving office that his successor’s foreign policy approach has caused the world to “lose confidence in the certainty of America.”
Biden, 82, told the BBC in the sitdown broadcast Wednesday that it was naïve of Trump, 78, to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would end his invasion of Eastern Europe if Kyiv bowed to Moscow’s demands and conceded territory, as the current administration has proposed.
“It is modern-day appeasement,” Biden said in the interview, which was recorded Monday in Delaware. “Look, listen to what Putin said when he talked about going from Kyiv into Ukraine and why. He can’t stand the fact that the Russian dictatorship that he runs, that the Soviet Union has collapsed.
“And anybody who thinks he’s going to stop is just foolish,” he added.
The term “appeasement” is a direct reference to attempts by successive British and European governments to accommodate German dictator Adolf Hitler’s territorial ambitions during the 1930s.
The interview was recorded and aired to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, which the US and its Western allies will mark Thursday.
Biden warned that the current path of the Trump administration could upend America’s relationship with Europe and “change the modern history of the world” for the worse.
“I fear our allies around the world are going to begin to doubt whether we’re going to stay where we’ve always been in the last 80 years,” he said.
While the former president was harsh with his successor’s approach to Russia, Biden faced similar criticism during his time in office and was frequently accused of not doing enough to help Ukraine fend off Moscow’s invasion.
It was only in his final weeks in office that Biden greenlit the deployment of long-range missiles to target Russian territory, which Ukraine had requested for months to hit military targets over the border.
During the 2024 presidential campaign Trump pledged that he would end the war quickly once he returned to the White House.
While the Trump administration has been accused of bowing to Russia’s demands in the peace talks, officials have begun to fire back at Moscow’s unwillingness to make any concessions as it continues to bombard Ukraine.
Vice President JD Vance, who has been critical of Ukraine in the past, blasted Russia’s stance on Wednesday, saying the Kremlin was “asking for too much” in exchange for ending its 38-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
With Post wires