‘What’s Biden Talking About?’ Tapper Confronts Dem Senator on President’s ‘Stunning’ Nuclear Armageddon Warning

 

CNN State of the Union anchor Jake Tapper questioned Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) about President Joe Biden’s warning that Russian threats have brought the world closer to a nuclear “Armageddon.”

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden said at a recent fundraiser while discussing nuclear saber-rattling from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Tapper noted that three top ranking U.S. officials poured cold water on the prospect of nuclear annihilation following on Biden’s “stunning” comments.

“So what’s President Biden talking about?” Tapper asked Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Do you see Armageddon as a real possibility?”

“I think the president is right to raise the risk of nuclear conflict because Vladimir Putin is increasingly getting pushed into a corner,” Murphy replied. “This war is going incredibly badly for him, the mobilization that he’s undertaken has backfired.”

“This is a dangerous man,” he added. “The United States has to be ready for Putin to use a tactical nuclear weapon.”

Murphy agreed with the top U.S. officials, however, that there is no imminent sign Putin is set to use nuclear weapons.

“I don’t think there’s any sign that he is going to do that imminently,” Murphy said. “It’s important for us to send signals about what the consequences would be should he make that choice. I think Joe Biden is right, to get this country ready for the fact that you’re dealing with an incredibly dangerous human being in Russia, the war is going badly, and you just can’t predict what he’s going to do next.”

Tapper said “someone who has ties to the Ukrainian government expressed concern to me that president Biden might be playing into Putin’s hands by escalating the rhetoric.”

European allies might get spooked that their support for Ukraine could push Russia further towards drastic action, Tapper proposed.

“This war can end if Vladimir Putin decides to get his troops and personnel out of Ukraine,” Murphy said. “He made a decision to invade a sovereign neighboring country. The blood today and tomorrow is on his hands. I think the president has made the right call to be very clear with Putin about what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do.

“I don’t want to get into a world in which we start blaming ourselves for escalation. This is Putin’s war. And it’s his decision whether it ends,” he concluded.

Watch above, via CNN.

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Aidan McLaughlin is the Editor in Chief of Mediaite. Send tips via email: aidan@mediaite.com. Ask for Signal. Follow him on Twitter: @aidnmclaughlin