Biden Offers Excuse as to Why He Won't Visit Ukraine Border: Handlers Won't Let Me
Richard Moorhead
Isn’t this guy the president?
President Joe Biden offered up an excuse as to why he wasn’t going to visit Ukraine during his European trip.
Biden pinned the decision on his staff, saying, “They will not let me.”
“You know, I’m here in Poland to see firsthand the humanitarian crisis,” the president said during a joint news conference Friday with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Rzeszow.
“And quite frankly,” he said, “part of my disappointment is that I can’t see it firsthand, like I have in other places. They will not let me, understandably, I guess, it would cross the border — and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine.”
Biden seemingly grumbled about his handlers’ insistence that he stay out of Ukraine.
He didn’t elaborate on which executive employees were forbidding him to go.
Obviously, a presidential visit to a country facing an invasion would present serious security and logistical challenges.
However, the buck stops with the president, ultimately.
The Secret Service is obligated to provide protection and security services to the commander in chief regardless of his travel plans.
But its agents can’t simply order him to do what they say.
They advise the president but they don’t control his travel plans and movements.
Some Twitter users were not impressed with Biden’s remark.
It’s very rare for a president to disregard the security advice of his Secret Service detail, but it’s not unprecedented.
Such tensions came up in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump spiked a visit to a World War II cemetery in Europe in response to their advice.
Trump sought to drive to the rural cemetery from Paris in a motorcade, only for the agency to object to such a plan, according to Military.com.
If Biden can’t visit Ukraine, he should explain the security concerns of such an idea himself rather claiming he’s not being permitted to go.
https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-offers-excuse-wont-visit-ukraine-border-handlers-wont-let/