How President Biden scored a big win today over Vladimir Putin

| 7:00 pm EDT June 16, 2021
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When two smart and competent adversaries like Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin hold a summit, it’s rarely as simple as declaring a 100% winner or 100% loser; it’s always a matter of degrees. That said, given how things played out today, it’s fair to classify the summit as a fairly big win for Biden, and not a great outcome for Putin.

This summit comes at a time when Biden commands such respect around the world, America’s approval rating has sharply rebounded under him. It’s also at a time when Putin is increasingly becoming a pariah due to his antics, is becoming less influential with the loss of his puppet Trump, and is struggling to keep things under control at home as Russian protests continue against him and the specter of Navalny hangs over him.

So it’s notable that after Biden and Putin met in private, Biden refused to hold a joint press conference. Putin could definitely have benefited in the legitimacy department if Biden had stood next to him and said that the summit went well. Instead Putin was left standing up there on his own, more or less kissing Biden’s backside, in the hope of convincing the world that the summit went well. Putin is pragmatic enough to know that he couldn’t get away with taking shots at Biden today, because if he did, most of the world would side with Biden.

And so by simply meeting with Putin in private but then leaving him to fend for himself in front of the cameras, President Biden managed to tell the world that America is back, while leaving Putin if not weakened then certainly not emboldened. Of course much of the American media has spent this week chasing ratings by portraying Putin as omnipotent, while hassling Biden with nonsense questions. But this summit is about how the world sees things – and Biden came out the clear winner on the world stage.