After his four-hour meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco last week, President Joe Biden was asked at a press conference if he would still refer to Xi as a dictator. Biden had used the term earlier this year to describe Xi.
Biden answered: “Well, look. He is. He’s a dictator in the sense that he’s a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours.”
Biden’s characterization of Xi as a dictator drew a biting response from a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, who called Biden’s comment: “extremely incorrect and irresponsible political manipulation.” (video above)
Chinese officials weren’t alone in questioning Biden’s comments. U.S. Congressman Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is running against Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary, also responded to Biden’s answer.
Phillips wrote: “Referring to the President of the People’s Republic of China as a ‘dictator’ only makes reconciliation more difficult. Our disagreements are real, but must be litigated and settled through diplomacy, not destruction. A re-set relationship between two of the worlds great nations is possible and necessary. And I will work to that end as President.”
Delete your candidacy…then this account. https://t.co/N0SNr6e9tH
— Kevin Walling (@KevinPWalling) November 17, 2023
Kevin Walling, a former surrogate for the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign and current Democratic political analyst on Fox News, replied to Phillips: “Delete your candidacy…then this account.“
In 2010, Walling helped to launch No Labels, a bipartisan political organization that in 2021 shifted its strategy toward running a third-party 2024 “unity” presidential ticket. In July 2023, Walling warned that No Labels is “wrong about 2024” and is “poised to be the most recent third-party effort to spoil a presidential election.”
Walling wrote: “I fully support fighting back against the extremes in our politics and finding bipartisan consensus where possible – and that’s why I support Joe Biden. Publishing meaningless policy statements, setting up state parties, tricking innocent voters into signing onto their effort, and trafficking in the notion that Biden and Trump are equal makes a mockery of No Labels’ founding principles.”
