Biden snaps at Finnish reporter in press conference on expanded NATO

President Joe Biden told a Finnish reporter who questioned him at a press conference in Helsinki that she might not make it home that night.

Biden reflected on uncertainty and his sense of fatalism as he answered a question about NATO’s newest member, which is only 70 miles from Russia and has now joined the powerful alliance amid a war raging in Europe.

“We will stand together,” he said next to Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, after Finland rushed to join the alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was admitted in April.

“No one can guarantee the future. But this is the best guess anyone can make,” he qualified.

Biden backtracked on his declaration of mutual commitment and collective defense, which is enshrined in the NATO Charter, even after he finished answering the question — whether US political divisions in the US will in the future meet the commitments Biden makes, could undermine.

He did so even after the Finnish president started answering a similar question.

‘Let me be clear, I didn’t say we didn’t…we couldn’t guarantee the future. You can’t tell me if you can go home tonight. No one knows for sure what they’re going to do,” Biden said.

“I say as sure as anything can be said about US foreign policy, we will stay connected to NATO, connected to NATO, mid to end. We are a transatlantic partnership.”

When he finished, the Finnish president added, “It seems the president has solved your problems.”

“I have no reason to doubt US policy going forward,” Niinisto said.

Biden had to ask his questioner to repeat her research after she referred to a bipartisan bill by Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) to prevent a president from withdrawing from NATO without the approval of the Congres.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the last part of your question,” Biden told her.

Biden had previously stated that “the United States is committed to Finland, committed to NATO and those commitments are rock solid.”

He pledged to protect “every inch of NATO territory, and of course that includes Finland,” he said.

The pledges came at a press conference with mutual compliments, but where Biden had to ask for repeated questions. He also had to correct himself after accidentally referring to the head of Ireland instead of the head of Iceland after meeting a group of Nordic nations.

“You can tell it’s a Freudian slip. I’m thinking of “home,” he said.

It all took place in the same room in the presidential palace where former President Donald Trump appeared to side with Vladimir Putin in 2018, accepting assurances from the Russian leader that he had not interfered in the 2016 election.

Biden also expressed “unwavering support” to the “brave people of Ukraine” after coming off a NATO summit in Vilnius where Ukraine was given new assurances about joining NATO but not the timetable to be invited where President Volodymyr Zelensky was looking for.

He said he didn’t think the war in Russia “could go on for years,” or that Russia could keep it up forever due to limited “resource capacity.”

Russia has endured Western sanctions but has had clear problems with arms ammunition and troops being sacrificed in the ‘meat grinder’ of the invasion of Ukraine.

Later, in response to a question from the US, Biden revealed during his answer to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin that the US does not know with certainty the location of the mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s private military boss who led a motorcade to Moscow led, only to make a deal and withdraw.

He was asked about the return of Russian military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov amid close scrutiny of how Putin will respond to the threat against his leadership and top commanders.

“Only God knows what he’s going to do,” Biden said. “We’re not even sure where he is and what relationship he has,” he said of Prigozhin, who made a deal for a refuge in Belarus but met with Putin there, according to the Kremlin.

“If I were him, I’d watch what I ate and watch the menu,” Biden said in his second dark humor of the press event.

In response to a question about Russian interference in US elections, he said, “They’re already interfering. That wouldn’t be anything new.”

It was as close as he came to referring to the Trump-Putin press here in 2018 where Trump accepted Putin’s denials for interfering in the 2016 election.

On fears that a weakened Putin could lash out with nuclear weapons, Biden said, “I don’t think there’s any real prospect. You never know if Putin uses nuclear weapons.’

Neither man mentioned Putin by name. The Finnish president called him ‘our neighbour’. Biden called him “the gentleman who takes a seat on the other side of the border in Moscow.”