In his first one-on-one interview since leaving the White House, former US President Joe Biden questioned whether European leaders can depend on America, 80 years on from VE (Victory in Europe) Day.
“I’m worried that Europe is going to lose confidence in the certainty of America and the leadership of America and the world, to deal with not only NATO but other matters that have a consequence,” Biden told the BBC’s Nick Robinson in a new interview for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I fear our allies around the world are going to begin to doubt whether we’re going to stay where we’ve always been in the last 80 years,” he said.
“I still think that the values of the vast majority of the American people value – do everything we can to avoid war, but not yield the tyrants,” he added.
The interview was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme today (6am BST), with the full interview available on the Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast on bbc.com/audio starting at 9am BST.
He also told Robinson he found scenes in the Oval Office between President Donald Trump and President Zelensky “beneath America”. Also referencing Trump’s comments about Canada and Greenland, he added: “What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are.”
“We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation,” he said.
Reflecting on his speech last year for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, where Biden said ‘they knew – beyond any doubt – there are things worth fighting and dying for’, Nick asked if he felt that the message of sacrifice is being forgotten in America.
Biden said that while he doesn’t think people have forgotten, he does ‘fear a little bit’ that it ‘has been forgotten by the leadership’.
“The fact is that my father and mother’s generation knew what was at stake. They knew that democracy was literally hanging in the balance,” Biden said.
“The United State has never been able to avoid a war in Europe. And so one of the smartest things we did after World War II was we formed NATO, because alliances provide security,” he added.
Biden said the idea that the Atlantic alliance was now dying was “a grave concern”.
“I think it would change the modern history of the world if that occurs. We are not the essential nation, but we’re the only nation in a position to have the capacity to bring people together to lead,” he said, “otherwise, you’re going to have China and the former Soviet Union and Russia stepping up.”
Referring to comments made by the US defence secretary about Europe ‘freeloading’ and US Vice President JD Vance talking about the US ‘bailing out Europe’, Biden said “they don’t have a point.”
“Imagine there being no NATO,” Biden said, “I don’t understand how they fail to understand that there’s strength in alliances. There’s benefits, the costs. It saves us money overall.”
Biden also described President Trump talking about Ukraine giving up some territory to Russia to end the conflict as “modern-day appeasement.”
“He [Putin] believes it has historical rights to Ukraine,” Biden told the BBC, “What this man wants to do is reestablish the Warsaw Pact. He can’t stand the fact that the Russian dictatorship that he runs, that the Soviet Union has collapsed. And anybody who thinks he’s going to stop is just foolish.”
In response to criticism that he didn’t have the courage to go all the way to let Ukraine win during his time in office, and that he didn’t give them the long-range weapons they needed, Biden said “the idea that they could win without engaging NATO in a war, and NATO having engaged in the former Soviet Union and Russia is not likely. We gave them everything they needed to provide for their independence, and we were prepared to respond. More aggressively if, in fact, Putin moved again.”
Elsewhere, Biden says it was the ‘right decision’ to step aside during the election campaign, but when questioned on whether he should’ve withdrawn earlier, Biden says he doesn’t think it would have ‘mattered’ and he doesn’t know ‘how that would’ve made much of a difference.’
