Back in Moscow after his one-on-one meeting with Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin had a chat with graduates of the College of Public Administration, during which he announced that “the image of President Biden, which is portrayed by our and even the American press, has nothing to do with reality.” Putin called him a “skillful professional” who is “completely at home with the material.” He is so good at what he does that “you need to work very carefully not to miss something,” and “he doesn’t miss anything, I assure you.”
The Washington Post took over the report of the Associated Press, which briefly summarized Putin’s opinion of the American president as “fully concentrated” and somebody who “knows what he wants to achieve. And he does it very shrewdly.” The New York Times called attention to the Russian state news media, which for months had ridiculed President Biden “as bumbling, confused and well past his prime” and noted that the mood had shifted, partially due to Vladimir Putin’s public admission that the negative portrait painted of Biden “has nothing to do with reality.”
Last fall I devoted a post to “Biden bashing in Budapest,” which described the government media’s treatment of Joe Biden just before the presidential election. Origo and other government papers described him as a tottering idiot who “is showing increasingly obvious signs of dementia.” In brief, the Fidesz media followed in the footsteps of the American right and the Russian media when it came to the assessment of the U.S. president. Biden bashing has continued in Hungary to this day. I suspect, however, that, following Moscow’s lead, this is going to change.
Why do I think that the Orbán government has decided to put an end to the incredibly vicious attacks on the U.S. president’s mental powers? The first hurdle foreign news items normally must overcome in Orbán’s Hungary is Magyar Távirati Iroda (MTI), the official state telegraphic agency, which often either doesn’t report on news the regime doesn’t like or calls on its censors to rewrite stories it receives. Thus, independent news sites get the bulk of their information on foreign affairs from foreign press agencies such as Reuters, AP, and AFP or from reliable foreign newspapers. This time, however, MTI gave a full account of Vladimir Putin’s correction of the Russian perception of President Biden’s mental abilities, which I think is worth quoting in full.
“The image that our press, and even the American press, paints of President Biden has nothing to do with reality,” Putin said.
The Russian president described his US counterpart as a professional and said they understood each other on key issues and found points on which cooperation was a priority for both sides at Wednesday’s summit in Geneva “in an atmosphere of goodwill.”
“We have to work very carefully with him so that we don’t miss anything. He is not missing anything, I can assure you,” the President told his audience.
“Biden looks fresh. We talked with him for two and a half hours and he’s totally on the ball. He looked at his notes from time to time, but we all do,” he said.
He pointed out that the US President had already been travelling in Europe for a week in a different time zone before the Geneva summit. As for the fact that Biden sometimes mixes things up, he said that his spokesperson Jen Psaki does it much more often.
He argued that this is not because Psaki lacks training or has a poor memory, but because “when someone thinks something is second-rate, they don’t focus on it.”
“And Americans think that there is nothing more important than themselves. That is their style,” the Russian leader said.
“I repeat once again: he (Biden) is focused and knows what he wants to achieve. And he does it very skillfully. You can feel it immediately,” he added.
He expressed his hope that the US President would be “left to work in peace,” unlike his predecessor.
Putin expressed his readiness to continue to cooperate with the United States to the extent that the US side is willing. He stressed that for his part he would defend Russian interests.
The editors of Híradó must have been taken aback by this MTI report because their headline for the story was “Putin gave a surprising description of Biden.” This is certainly true compared to the tone of earlier articles on Biden.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
But what is even more remarkable is that, alone among pro-government papers, Magyar Hírlap reprinted the full MTI report from Moscow as opposed to Magyar Nemzet, which decided to offer their “own” analysis, basically a cut-and-paste job, of the outcome of the Biden-Putin summit. The quotations come primarily from Fox News, and the article reaches the conclusion that “Putin has achieved more than expected.” The paper even quotes Donald Trump, according to whom “it was a good day for Russia, and we got nothing.” Nonetheless, right after this Trump quotation, the article took a sharp turn and added: “Nevertheless, Putin noted the day after the talks that the ‘somewhat discouraging image’ of Biden painted by the media has nothing to do with reality. The Russian president described his US counterpart as a professional and said they had understood each other on key issues at Wednesday’s summit. You have to work very carefully with him.”
Despite the best efforts of the unnamed staff member who wrote the article, it is impossible to successfully dovetail two contradictory assessments within the same article. One cannot insist that Biden lost the encounter and that Biden’s “stubborn optimism” might be chalked up to a “worrying naïveté” while at the same time, however abbreviated, including Putin’s positive assessment of his adversary as a tough negotiator.
The last time I checked the other propaganda outlets, no one had yet dared to stick their necks out, but sooner or later they will have to follow the independent news sources which have widely reported on the Russian reassessment of Biden’s mental state and his diplomatic skills. Because, let’s face it, neither the Russian nor the Hungarian media presented the portrait of a dotty Biden on their own initiative. The directives came from above, and now the communication/propaganda department must reformulate its media policy as far as the U.S. president is concerned. It will be fun to watch the process, the speed and manner in which it will be achieved. Because I assume that Viktor Orbán, the great friend of Vladimir Putin, cannot ignore the Russian president’s reassessment of Joe Biden.
