Former President Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump for suggesting Ukraine may have to give up territory in exchange for peace, calling it a “modern-day appeasement,” in reference to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s efforts to appease Adolf Hitler as he sought to annex land in the 1930s.
“I just don’t understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide he’s going to take significant portions of land that aren’t his, and that’s going to satisfy him. I don’t, I don’t quite understand,” Biden said, referencing Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program.
The former president also said he found it “beneath America” the way Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this year in a tense Oval Office meeting, while also questioning Trump’s comments on the Gulf of America and desire to acquire Panama, Greenland and Canada.
“What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation,” Biden said.
When asked if Biden believes there is a greater threat to democracy now than any other time since World War II, the former president said, “Yes, I do because, I mean, look at, look at the number of European leaders in European countries. They’re wondering, well, what do I do now? What’s the best route for me to take? Can I rely on the United States? Are they going to be there?”
Asked if Trump was behaving more like a king than a president, Biden said, “He’s not behaving like a Republican president.” Biden added that history will judge Trump’s time in office but he has not seen anything “triumphant” in his first 100 days in office.
The former president also said he is less concerned about democracy being under threat in the US than he was in the past “because I think the Republican Party is waking up to what Trump is about.”
Biden additionally was asked about whether he should have left the 2024 campaign earlier and said “I don’t think it would have mattered.”
“We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she’s fully funded. And what happened was I had become what we had set out to do. No one thought we could do and become so successful, our agenda. It was hard to say now I’m going to stop now,” Biden said.
He continued, “I meant what I said when I started that I think I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation, the transition government. But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away. It was a hard decision.”
Biden spent much of his presidency grappling with the war in Ukraine, working to rally European allies to aid the country and attempting to apply pressure on Russia through sanctions. In his final months in the White House, Biden approved the use of long-range American missiles in Russia and surge in remaining approved US aid to the country as possible US support for Ukraine under Trump remained in question. Under Biden’s watch, the US provided more than $65 billion in aid since the war began in 2022.
The conversation with the BBC marks Biden’s first interview since leaving office and coincides with 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, which celebrates the end of the World War II in Europe. He is also slated to appear on the ABC’s The View on Thursday.
Biden has largely stayed out of the public spotlight since leaving office, but last month, he slammed the Trump administration’s approach to the Social Security Administration.
“Look what’s happened now. Fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made so – done so much damage and so much destruction. It’s kind of breathtaking it could happen that soon,” Biden said at a conference for disabilities advocates.
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