[United States President Joe Biden announces his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2023, as Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Shalanda Young listens, in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington on Mar 28, 2022. (Photo by=Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)]

WASHINGTON: United States President Joe Biden on Monday (Mar 28) said that his remark that Russian President Vladimir Putin should not remain in power reflected his own moral outrage at Russia's invasion of Ukraine, not the US policy shift, Reuters reported.
 
Biden faced pressure to speak about the comment after it generated a flood of questions as to whether the United States had changed to a policy seeking regime change in Moscow. "I wasn't then nor am I now articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I felt, and I make no apologies," he told reporters at the White House. He said that his outburst, made at the end of a major address about Ukraine in Warsaw on Saturday, had been prompted by an emotional visit he had with families displaced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
 
At the end of his speech in the Polish capital, Biden added an unscripted line, saying that Putin "cannot remain in power". Administration officials rushed to clarify afterward that the White House wasn’t advocating for regime change in Russia. Biden on Monday said that he’s "not walking anything back" by clarifying the remark. Asked whether the remark would spur a negative response from Putin, Biden said: "I don’t care what he thinks ... He’s going to do what he’s going to do."