Biden Affirms Prioritizing Human Rights in Vietnam without Neglecting US Interests

President Joe Biden gave a gruff answer when questioned Sunday whether he is putting U.S. strategic interests over human rights issues during a global press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The exchange was part of a series of non sequiturs and tangents that grew increasingly bizarre toward the tail end of the event with members of the world press. It had been scheduled to cap off the G20 summit in New Delhi.

As White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre announced the end of presser, reporters continued to ask questions and Biden engaged them, Mediaite reports.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to bed,” he said at one point, but was followed up with CNN’s Jeremy Diamond asking him about human rights.

According to the official White House transcript, the exchange between Biden, who appeared perturbed by the question, and Diamond went like this.

Q What did you talk about with Mr. Li? You said you spoke to the number two from China, who wa- — in India today?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we ta- —

Q What did you talk about with him?

THE PRESIDENT: We talked about what we talked about at the conference overall. We talked about stability. We talked about making sure that the Third World — the — excuse me — “Third World” — the — the — the Southern Hemisphere had access to change, it had access —

We — it wasn’t confrontational at all. He came up to me. He said (inaudible) —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank — thank you, everybody.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: This ends the cou- — press conference. Thanks, everyone.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you.

(Cross-talk.)

Q Mr. President, are you putting U.S. strategic interests above human rights here in Vietnam?

Q You have time for one more. We came all this way. We came all this way.

Q Are you putting U.S. strategic interests above human rights here in Vietnam?

THE PRESIDENT: (Inaudible) above human rights, and I’ve raised it with every person I met with.

Thank you.

The exchange came after Biden spoke for about 20 minutes in a series of tangents featuring mentions of “John Wayne,” “cowboys,” “Indians,” “dog-face pony soldiers,” or in bizarre comments such as “even more frightening than a- than a nuclear war is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20 [to] 10 years.”

Moments later, the president was then asked what his thoughts were about Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who attended the G20 summit on Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s behalf.

President Biden responded saying: “We talked about what we talked about at the conference overall. We talked about stability. We talked about making sure that the Third World — the — excuse me — ‘Third World’ — the — the — the Southern Hemisphere had access to change, it had access — We — it wasn’t confrontational at all. He came up to me. He said (inaudible) —”