Psaki Challenges Reporter Asking If Biden is ‘Confusing’ Putin and Other Leaders with Genocide Call-Out: ‘Do You Have An Example?’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki challenged CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee when Lee asked if President Joe Biden’s “genocide” remarks are confusing to Vladimir Putin and other world leaders.

At Wednesday’s press briefing, Ms. Psaki took a raft of questions about the president’s invocation of “genocide” in Iowa, and his doubling-down minutes later. In an exchange with Ms. Lee, Psaki challenged the notion that the president’s expressions of horror confuse allies and adversaries:

MS. LEE: Jen, three times now the President has made comments about the war that the White House or he himself subsequently said did not reflect U.S. policy or a legal determination when he said Putin is a “war criminal,” when he said that Putin “cannot remain in power,” and, of course, his comment about this being “genocide” in Ukraine. Does this not send a signal to the world that there kind of is an asterisk any — next to anything that the President says?

MS. PSAKI: Well, when the President ran, he promised the American people he would “shoot from the shoulder” — is his phrase that he often uses — and “tell it to them straight.” And his comments yesterday — not once, but twice — and on war crimes are an exact reflection of that.

I don’t think anybody is confused about the atrocities of what we’re seeing on the ground, the horrors of what we’re seeing on the ground. And different leaders around the world describe it in different ways. But what we’re — there is — what is unquestionable is what we’re seeing is horrific: the targeting of civilians, of hospitals, of — of even kids. And it — the President was calling it like he see — like he sees it, and that’s what he does.

MS. LEE: If I could ask it this way: Do you think that there is any danger to global leaders — including Vladimir Putin to Olaf Scholz — if they can’t be sure when they hear words coming out of the President’s mouth whether he is stating a personal opinion versus making a statement about U.S. policy?

MS. PSAKI: Do you have an example of somebody who’s confused, a leader?

MS. LEE: Well, I think my colleague brought up Emmanuel Macron saying — responding and saying, you know, the use of the language, “genocide,” he sees as rhetorical escalation.

MS. PSAKI: President Putin is brutally targeting civilians and brutalizing a country right now. So, the President — this President — was speaking to what those atrocities are and what he’s seeing on the ground.

A number of other leaders have done exactly that. It does not change policy in the sense that we’ve seen these atrocities, unfortunately, for weeks now. And we’re going to see more as Russia pulls back from parts of the country.

So what our focus will continue to be and the focus of leaders around the world is to continue to escalate our military assistance, our security assistance, as we did today in providing a range of — of weapons that we have not even provided to them in the past. And that, I think, is what the Ukrainians are most focused on and I think the global community is most focused on: how we’re responding and how we’re helping them.

MS. LEE: Could you explain — so, if the U.S. were to legally determine that what is happening in Ukraine is genocide, what would the sort of legal obligations from the United States be at that point?

MS. PSAKI: It doesn’t change a policy. There would be an international effort to explore that and an investigation at an international level. Those often take many years.

MS. LEE: And nothing has changed in terms of the President not wanting to send in U.S. troops to Ukraine?

MS. PSAKI: Correct. Nothing has changed.

Watch above via The White House and Reuters.