President Joe Biden apologized for an outburst at a CNN reporter who asked him angry questions following his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, stating that he believes “To be a good reporter, you’ve gotta be negative – you’ve gotta have a negative view of life.”
“I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy with the last answer I gave,” Biden said of his exchange with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, during which he yelled “What the hell do you do all the time” and admonished her that she was in the “wrong business.”
President Biden apologizes after snapping at a reporter: "I shouldn't have been such a wise guy with the last answer I gave." pic.twitter.com/TCn8FuRmZN
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 16, 2021
Biden also elaborated on the reasoning for his outburst, stating, “Look, to be a good reporter, you’ve gotta be negative. You’ve gotta have a negative view of life, okay, it seems to me, the way you all – you never ask a positive question . . . the thing that always amazes me about the questions – and I apologize for having been short about this before – if you were in my position, would you say ‘Well, I don’t think man, anything is gonna happen, it’s gonna be really rough,’ you’d guarantee nothing happens. You guarantee nothing happens.”
BIDEN: "To be a good reporter, you've gotta be negative. You've gotta have a negative view of life, ok, it seems to me — the way you all — you never ask a positive question.”
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 16, 2021
The exchange between Biden and Collins was highly volatile, as reported by National File:
“Why are you you so confident [Putin] is going to change his behavior, Mr. President,” Collins demanded. Biden swung around and glared at the reporter. “I’m not confident I’m going to change his behavior,” he snapped. “What the hell? What do you do all the time? When did I say I was confident? I said, I said, what I said was, let’s get it straight, I said what will change their behavior is the [unintelligible] world reacts to to their behavior that diminishes their standing. I’m not confident of anything, I’m just stating the facts.”
Collins continued to antagonized the President, arguing, “But given his past behavior has not changed, and in that press conference after sitting down with you for several hours, he denied any involvement in cyber attacks, he downplayed human rights abuses, he even refused to say Alexei Navalny’s name, so how does that account to a constructive meeting as President Putin – ”
Biden then smiled and interjected, “If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business.” He then turned and walked away as the gaggle of journalists yelled a torrent of questions at his back in vain.