Headlined side-by-side in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times (below), “Cheering Allies, Biden Says Putin Can’t Stay in Power.” The allies were not encouraged.
Emmanuel Macron told France 3 about his colleague: “We shouldn’t be on an escalation of words or actions. We Europeans are not at war with the Russian people.”
Josep Borrell, who serves as chancellor of the European Union, told the Financial Times of Biden: “In the EU, we are not after regime change.”
And UK Chancellor Liz Truss told the Telegraph that the “sanctions could be lifted” if Russia agreed to stay “no more aggression”.
The White House itself rushed to deny Biden, telling the website Axios, among others, that it was offhand, “it wasn’t on the teleprompter.”
LOW CONFIDENCE
In the background, NBC highlighted on its Sunday program Meet the Press that “seven in 10 Americans express low confidence in Biden’s ability to handle” the war, according to a network poll.
Eight in ten say they are concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by the war.
Pulled by the assessment on the economy, the president’s approval rating dropped to 40%, the same record low in the Reuters/Ipsos poll five days earlier. Both without the “unity around the flag, with Biden” effect, common in wars.
For the first time “since 2014,” NBC recorded a majority in favor of a Republican-controlled Congress. Elections will be in early November.
TRUMP & PUTIN
With little coverage in the US, Donald Trump held a rally on Saturday in the state of Georgia and once again called Vladimir Putin “smart”, as shown by the Newsmax channel. He also used the adjective to describe Xi Jinping and North Korean Kim Jong-un.
From the former president, featured in the London Daily Mail: “The failed New York Times finally admitted that Hunter Biden’s laptop was real. Remember when they said it was made by Russia? Putin has bigger problems now, but he must have thought we were crazy”.
‘TAKE THE PRODUCTION MEMES!’
Closing the week, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk tweeted a poll that ended up confirming his questioning from Twitter itself, for not “strictly” respecting freedom of expression.
He then announced that he is “seriously thinking” about setting up a new social media platform, to “take the production memes!”
