(RepublicanInformer.com)- According to the Hill, President Biden is confident he can meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin while he is in Europe for the G-7 summit meeting in June.
No one-on-one meeting has yet to be worked out, but Biden is “confident we’ll be able to do it.”
Might be a bit of an awkward meeting given Biden’s past remarks regarding Russia in general and Putin specifically.
In addition to continuing to flog the “Russia interfered with the election” claim, Biden also pushed the unsubstantiated claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop with “Russian disinformation.” A claim which has since been completely debunked.
In addition to that, during a March interview on Good Morning America, President Biden called Putin a killer and vowed he would “pay a price” for interfering in the election.
EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Biden told @GStephanopoulos that he agreed Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "killer" and will "pay a price" for interfering in U.S. elections. https://t.co/rIe2ms8sSv pic.twitter.com/VtAGCvF9hp
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 17, 2021
In response to this, Putin challenged Biden to a debate.
US/Russian relations were already on shaky ground given the endless “Russian collusion” drumbeat of the previous four years. In his first one hundred days, President Biden hasn’t exactly brought the temperature down.
Biden is making his first foreign trip next month – traveling first to the UK for the G-7, then stopping in Belgium to meet with EU and NATO leaders. However, Biden’s yet-to-be scheduled meeting with Putin will not take place during the G-7 or his visit to Belgium.
“We’re working through the question of some logistics, place, location, time, agenda, all the specifics, that was always going to happen at a staff level,” said Jen Psaki on Friday. “It’s really up to them what they want to achieve.”
This would be the first test of President Biden’s capacity to handle a US adversary. And there is plenty to talk about – from the Russian military build-up along the border with Ukraine to the imprisonment and treatment of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
“Obviously, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, values are all issues the president, Secretary Blinken, National Security Adviser Sullivan raised with their counterparts,” said Psaki. “But the invitation to have a discussion and have a meeting was not offered with the prerequisite that every issue is resolved in advance. We expect we will still continue to have disagreements.”
The question is, will President Biden be able to deal with these disagreements in a way that doesn’t make US/Russian relations even worse.
Given the disastrous summit between Secretary of State Blinken and Chinese officials back in March, there is some question as to whether President Biden can effectively convey US interests and concerns without it blowing up in his face.
