Biden Reveals To MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell What He Told Putin To Keep Him From Dropping Nukes

President Joe Biden revealed to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell what he told Russian President Vladimir Putin to dissuade him from using “tactical nukes” in Ukraine.

In an exclusive interview that aired on Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, Biden gave what’s being billed as his final sit-down before leaving office on Monday morning.

During that interview, O’Donnell and Biden spent several minutes discussing the war in Ukraine, including whether Biden had “any direct communication with Vladimir Putin to deter him from using nuclear weapons?”:

O’DONNELL: You made the point of — in your State Department speech. It was quite striking that you’re the one who has walked the middle of Kyiv, Putin never got there, and I’m not sure anyone — I’m sure no one would have predicted of these two leaders, which one is going to be the first one in Kyiv.

When this war started and when this war started, there was a tremendous tension about the possibility of nuclear confrontation, the possibility of Vladimir Putin using nuclear weapons.

Did you have any direct communication with Vladimir Putin to deter him from using nuclear weapons?

BIDEN: Well, I did. I — when he started talking about tactical, I said this guy wants to use tactical nuclear weapons. Oh, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that.

Nuclear weapons — tactical nuclear weapons in Europe scares the hell out of everybody including the Russians.

O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

BIDEN: Including the Russians.

And so what I — I made it clear to him, look — he said to me that what he wanted was he wanted to make sure that there were no nuclear weapons in Europe — I mean, in Ukraine. That there was — they weren’t a member of NATO, and that they would not be — he started off one of the conversations by saying, I know you can take me out tomorrow. I know you can take me out tomorrow from Ukraine. You can strike Moscow. You can strike.

I said, that’s not a problem. We’ve already taken the nuclear weapons out. So took them all out, there’s none there. We’re not going to putting them back in, and they’re not going to become part of NATO until they change their system, significantly.

We’re going to continue to help them grow if we can, but that — those two things aren’t going to happen, but you’re not going to go in and take them. You’re not going to go in (ph) and claim the area.

And you remember, Lawrence, when I said they were going to go in, everybody said, oh, no, that’s not going to happen.

O’DONNELL: Again, I didn’t think it was going to happen. An expert I know who works in Ukraine told me it’s not going to happen. No one here in Ukraine thinks it’s going to happen because it seems so irrational for Putin to do that.

BIDEN: But listen — but read what he said. Go back — this guy means what he says. He really talked about this being part of Mother Russia. He thinks —

O’DONNELL: Uh-huh, yeah.

BIDEN: And so, it’s a little bit like you may remember, I — I found myself with the former pope who was much more conservative.

O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

BIDEN: And he wanted to see me after — after I spent some time in Poland because I had said — remember, John Rich — John Brennan guy.

John and I went to Poland and I came back and said they’re going to — they’re going to leave the Warsaw Pact. They’re not going to be — a year from now, there’ll be no — they’re not going to be part of NATO.

He said, don’t write that. You’ll ruin your reputation. You’ll ruin your reputation, don’t write that.

I was confident it was true. You could see when you talk to them what was going on, and the end result was that okay, what happened now is they pull out. All of a sudden, the whole dynamic changes in Europe, everything’s moving.

Remember what was going on in Hungary at the time. Remember Tom Lantos and talking about all.

Anyway, the end result was that Europe was beginning to lose it — a structure and I was convinced you could build a structure that was economically and politically more open and sound, and without getting into a conti — nuclear world. That’s why we never put American forces in there. I didn’t want him to have an excuse to say we’re putting the dean — other major nuclear power in the world is in — that wasn’t the case.

And so, the end result of it was, it was clear to me what he was going to do. I got the National Security Council to move in the direction where I could use the data without revealing national secrets, that they were going to move in. They moved in, by the way.

O’DONNELL: You revealed a lot at that time.

BIDEN: I did.

O’DONNELL: I say, we’ve never seen anything quite like that. You publicly revealing what you believed the intelligence showed Vladimir Putin was going to do.

BIDEN: And the reason why I did is I wanted people to believe me, you know what I was talking about. I knew more what I was talking about at that point because the position I was in than anybody else did.

O’DONNELL: Sure.

BIDEN: And when they said, he might never do that, like, oh my God, oh, my God.

Watch above via MSNBC’s The Last Word.