Biden’s summit with Putin only made the US seem weaker

President Joe Biden refused a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin following their first summit on Wednesday to avoid a PR disaster. Yet the Moscow strongman still won the day.

Indeed, Biden actually got angrier with an American journalist than with the dictator, who used his opportunity to deny, deflect and deceive — raising his own standing at Biden’s expense. Just a day before, off the Hawaiian coast, Russia’s Navy conducted military exercises on a scale not seen since the Cold War. The provocation cost Putin nothing: The summit ended with Biden calling the meeting’s tone “positive” and Putin declaring, “There has been no hostility.”