You don’t even get a chance to open your mouth and you’re shot dead’: Putin tears into US gun violence, says Biden is ‘very different’ from Trump and compares jailing his political opponents to arresting Capitol rioters
Vladimir Putin described Joe Biden as ‘very different’ from Donald Trump and turned any questions on human rights violations in Russia into attacks on violence in America. ‘President Biden is an experienced statesman. He is very different from President Trump,’ he said. The Russian president appeared to get snappy when questioned on touchy topics, including Biden calling him a ‘killer’ and on dissident Alexei Navalny. Putin spoke first after he and Biden concluded their three hour meeting at an historic 18th century villa by Lake Geneva, giving his early spin on their meeting. He walked over to the room he held his press conference, a contrast to Biden who rode over to the building in his presidential car. Putin took questions from both Russian state media and American news outlets. He spoke in Russian and was translated. He turned many of the questions into criticism of gun violence in the United States. ‘You don’t have time to open your mouth and you’re shot dead,’ he said, referring to mass shootings in the United States. ‘Look at American streets. People are getting killed there,’ he said. ‘You can get a bullet in the neck.’ And he argued the US had ‘secret CIA prisons.’