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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics,

life and culture. My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of The Spectator.

I'm very pleased to be joined by Lionel Shriver, the novelist and spectator columnist.

And we're going to be talking about Biden's first year. Now, Lionel, I haven't watched the entire

two-hour press conference, almost two-hour

press conference that Joe Biden gave yesterday, but I've seen quite a few of the clips and read

quotes, and I think it's fair to say that we can see why Biden's team might be keen on

him avoiding these press conferences, as they have often been accused of doing.

He sounded a bit lost in parts, particularly on the questions.

He suggested that Putin would carry out a minor incursion of the Ukraine and that he didn't

really know what his administration would do about that.

As I understand it, it wasn't just that he thought that Putin would make a minor incursion,

but that he was allowing for the possibility that it might be a merely minor incursion,

in which case they would have to decide what to do about it, if anything.

And it was just very ill-judged.

It's exactly the kind of thing that he does on the hoof, which is why his minders don't want

him to make anything up on the fly, because it's the same thing he did with Taiwan, which, you know,

through the entire one China policy

out the window. I don't think it's in anyone's interest, aside from Putin's, for Biden to be

talking about, well, you know, if you only take a little bit of Ukraine, we're not going to mind.

...