WASHINGTON, March 8, 2024 (AFP) – US President Joe Biden vowed Thursday he will not “bow down” to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, fiercely criticizing rival Donald Trump in his State of the Union address.
From the very first moments of his annual address, Biden lashed out at his predecessor and presumed Republican rival in November elections and urged the divided Congress to approve stalled military aid to Ukraine.
“Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond,” Biden said.
“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he will not.”
“It wasn’t long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” Biden said, invoking the famous 1987 Berlin speech in the waning days of the Cold War.
“My predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want,’ That’s a quote,” Biden told the joint session.
“I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous and it’s unacceptable,” Biden said.
“My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple — We will not walk away,” Biden said.
“I will not bow down,” Biden said. “In a literal sense, history is watching.”
Biden welcomed in the gallery Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, hours after the Nordic country formally entered NATO, the Western alliance disparaged by Trump as unfairly burdening the United States.
Sweden had been officially nonaligned for two centuries but, alongside Finland, applied to join NATO after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
