Psaki Says Biden ‘Is Ready for Anything’ But ‘We’re Not Sending the President to Ukraine’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki couldn’t suppress a laugh when she told interviewers that President Joe Biden is “ready for anything,” but he won’t be visiting war-torn Ukraine.

On Thursday morning, President Biden set some tongues wagging during a tarmac exchange with reporters that sounded, to some, a lot like he’s open to going to the war-torn country himself:

Reporter: Will you send officials to Ukraine? Will you send senior officials to Ukraine?

President Biden: We’re making that decision now.

Reporter: Who would you send?

President Biden: Are you ready to go?

Reporter: Are you?

President Biden: Yeah.

Psaki was a guest Thursday night on a live episode of Pod Save America, and the first question she fielded was about Biden’s remark.

POD SAVE AMERICA: All right. I want to start with something that feels a bit newsy earlier today, after reports that there were reports that you guys are considering sending a senior official to Ukraine. A reporter asked the president if he’s ready to go to Ukraine himself. And I was watching this clip and then he just said, Yeah.

MS. PSAKI: (Laughs)

POD SAVE AMERICA: I was like, Oh, OK, it’s sending the president to Ukraine something that that you guys have like, talked about, I know there’s no plan, like is it something that you guys are discussing?

MS. PSAKI: No.

POD SAVE AMERICA: OK,.

MS. PSAKI: No…

POD SAVE AMERICA: So he’s ready, he’s just not like…

MS. PSAKI: He is ready. He’s ready for anything. The man likes a fast car, some aviators. He’s ready to go to Ukraine. It’s true. He does. We are not sending the president to Ukraine. What I will tell you is that what Boris Johnson did is he took, I believe, an eight-hour train through a war zone to get to the middle of Ukraine. So no, that is not in the plans for the president of the United States. We should all be maybe relieved about that. He’s got a few other things to do…

POD SAVE AMERICA: I was going to say, thank you.

MS. PSAKI: Yes, you’re welcome. You’re welcome, America. We need him to do a lot of things.

POD SAVE AMERICA: You know what, Jen? My follow-up question was going to be like, All right, we all know what the risks of that would be like. What are the rewards?

Listen above via Pod Save America.

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