Biden confronts Trump without speaking: President prepares to welcome Finland into NATO’s embrace in same palace where Trump stood side-by-side with Putin
- Biden meets the president of Finland in presidential palace
- Trump appeared to accept Putin’s denials in same venue in 2018
- Biden took a veiled shot at Trump from Vilnius
President Joe Biden is drawing a sharp contrast with his nemesis Donald Trump in Helsinki without needing to mention his name by holding an event in the same venue where Trump appeared to side with Vladimir Putin.
Biden landed in Helsinki Wednesday night after addressing a cheering crowd in Vilnius, on a visit meant to welcome NATO’s newest member, whose move to the alliance was driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Hours earlier Biden said in a speech that he had strengthened the military alliance and blasted Putin.
In Helsinki, which lies just 700 miles from the Russian border, he will appear in the same presidential palace with Finish President Sauli Niinistö where Trump met with Putin in 2018.
President Joe Biden’s visit to Helsinki draws a contrast with former President Donald Trump’s infamous visit in 2018
It was in that infamous meeting where Trump appeared to side with Russia over U.S. intelligence amid Putin’s denials of interference in the 2016 elections.
‘They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be,’ Trump said, when asked who he believed.
‘I have great confidence in my intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today, and what he did is an incredible offer,’ Trump added.
His explosive language came days after a dozen Russians were indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
Trump’s own intelligence chief, former Republican Sen. Dan Coats, had to issue a statement underlining that ‘we have been clear in our assessment of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.’
Trump appeared to accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials of election interference during their appearance in 2018. The meeting came four years after Russia invaded Crimea and four years before it’s massive invasion of Ukraine
Biden received a rapturous applause from the Lithuanian crowd in the country’s capital, Vlinius
Biden will visit the presidential palace where Trump met Putin during the height of the Mueller probe
Locals waved American and Ukrainian flags as they waited for the president to speak in Vilnius
The commander-in-chief made a veiled dig at his predecessor Donald Trump, hitting out at him for undermining Washington’s ties with its European allies
It was at the same summit that Putin gave Trump a soccer ball that may have contained a transmitter chip.
With a war raging inside Ukraine, Biden’s European trip gave him the chance to turn away from his reelection campaign and focus on transatlantic politics.
His speech in Vilnius featured attestations of unity and swipes at Putin, although the NATO summit began with fuming by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the failure to provide a timeline for his country to be invited to join the alliance.
Biden also took a veiled shot at Trump, who spoke about pulling out of NATO and harangued members for falling short of their commitments to spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defense.
‘I’ve been so focused as president on rebuilding and revitalizing alliances, the cornerstone of American leadership in these past years,’ Biden said during meetings Wednesday.
‘Russia could end this war tomorrow by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine’ and ‘ceasing his inhumane attacks on women and children’, said Biden, 80, thundered during his speech.
‘Unfortunately, Russia has shown thus far no interest in the diplomatic outcome. Putin still wrongly believes that he can outlast Ukraine. He can’t believe it’s their land, their country and their future and even after all this time, Putin still doubts our staying power. He is still making a bad bet.
‘When Russian bombs began to fall, we did not hesitate to act. We rallied the world support the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their liberty and their sovereignty,’ he added.
Trump has been continuing to attack Biden on social media from afar, during a week where he suffered a setback when the Justice Department announced it would no longer defend him in rape accuser E. Jean Carrol’s defamation case. The slams have echoes of his fulminations about the Mueller probe while it his campaign’s Russia contacts.
‘Crooked Joe Biden’s Targeted, Weaponized DOJ & FBI are a grave threat to our Democracy! They are doing Crooked’s DIRTY WORK in attacking and persecuting “TRUMP,” and only doing so because I am CRUSHING DeSanctimonious and Biden in the Polls. This is planned Election Interference of the highest magnitude, and used to only happen in Third World Countries. Now, sadly and terribly, it is happening right here in America, and must be stopped if our Country is to survive. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
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