Joe Biden bragged that his foreign policy record is one of the best in U.S. history at a fundraiser in California, where wealthy donors paid $100,000 for a photo with the president.
The 80-year-old then bizarrely compared himself to controversial veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, during his 34-minute speech.
“I’m going to say something outrageous. I think I know as much about US foreign policy as anyone, including Dr. Kissinger,” he told a group of wealthy Democrats at the home of a leading venture capitalist.
“That’s what I’ve done all my life, for the past 207 years,” Biden, who once chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in yet another joke about his age.
Attendees could pay $100,000 for a ‘meet and greet’ ticket that gave wealthy donors the chance to take a selfie with Joe Biden himself
Declassified memos showed Kissinger arguing that the US should support a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet in Chile
The highly polarizing Kissinger, who recently turned 100, has even been accused of war crimes by human rights activists.
Biden said he had warned Kiev that Russia would invade Ukraine ahead of Vladimir Putin’s illegal land grab.
He also said the Russian despot was wrong in thinking NATO’s military alliance would break because of its support for the Ukrainian army.
“If you notice, Putin was almost certain he was going to split NATO when he invaded,” Biden said. “NATO is more united than ever before.”
But some Republicans have suggested that the president is “rolling slowly” in US military aid to Ukraine, questioning why he has not approved long-range ATACMS missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.
As Barack Obama’s vice president, he also argued against enforcing the former administration’s own red line on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The commander-in-chief was speaking at a “Biden Victory Fund” event as he sought donations for his 2024 re-election.
Attendees were expected to shell out at least $6,600 for the cheapest tickets, while the very wealthy Democrats could shell out $100,000 for a handshake and a selfie with Biden himself.
According to data submitted to the US election watchdog, the Federal Election Committee, the Biden for President campaign has raised more than $12 million over the past two years.
Biden only officially confirmed his intention to run for a second term on April 25, meaning he will turn 86 if he manages to defeat his Republican rival next year.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr launched his winning bid to face Joe Biden at an event in Boston in April
Current polls suggest he will get a rematch against ex-President Donald Trump, who is the runaway favorite in GOP voter polls.
Only no-hopers Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and scion of America’s “royal family,” and self-help author Marianne Wilkinson have said they intend to run against Biden.
But there seems little appetite among Democratic Party apparatchiks to support a competitive primary runoff against the incumbent.
A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released Friday shows that RFK Jr, nephew of assassinated President JFK, enjoys support from a whopping 15 percent of the party’s primary voters.
The environmental lawyer, who has been trying to shake off some disgruntled Republican voters with promises to seal the border with Mexico, launched his long-awaited bid in Boston in April.
The 69-year-old recently ran afoul of social media giant YouTube after the tech company removed an interview by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Democratic Voters Want Biden To Debate RFK Jr And Hold A Competitive Primary Ahead Of The 2024 Presidential Election
In the interview, Kennedy made the completely baseless claim that polluted water turned children in the United States transgender.
He claimed that “much of the sexual dysphoria” America sees stems from exposure to chemicals in the water.
“I think a lot of the problems we’re seeing in kids, especially boys, are probably underappreciated because a lot of that is a result of chemical exposure, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing,” Kennedy said.
“I mean, they’re swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals these days, and a lot of them are endocrine disruptors. There is atrazine in our water supply,” he added.
The popular video-sharing site has a long-standing policy of removing misleading medical claims from its platform.
“We have removed a video from the Jordan Peterson channel for violating YouTube’s general policy on vaccine disinformation, which prohibits content claiming that vaccines cause chronic side effects beyond rare side effects recognized by health authorities,” YouTube said. in a statement.