House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) touted President Joe Biden's response to Russia launching an invasion of Ukraine, saying Friday that the president's experience working on foreign policy has prepared him for an event like this.
Speaking to reporters, Pelosi highlighted the "brilliance" of Biden's handling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
"I think it's really important for people to understand the brilliance with which President Biden is conducting this," Pelosi said, according to Fox News' Chad Pergram. "This is a man who served decades as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He knows the arena. He knows the personalities."
This comes after the Speaker on Wednesday lauded Biden's decision to impose sanctions on Russia.
"It's stunning to see in this day and age a tyrant roll into a country. This is the same tyrant who attacked our democracy in 2016," she said at a news conference, appearing to refer to the debunked theory that Putin interfered in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.
President Joe Biden placed sanctions directly on Putin on Friday. But because Putin has buried his wealth, making it difficult to freeze his assets, sanctioning the Russian president is largely symbolic.
Over the past few days, Biden has been imposing a number of Russian sanctions, including on large Russian financial institutions and elites with close ties to Putin. He has also worked with European allies to ice the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
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However, the U.S. president is not willing to remove Russia from the SWIFT international banking system at this time despite calls to do so from several U.S. lawmakers, world leaders and Ukrainian officials.
And a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released Friday found that 64 percent of American voters believe Biden is too lenient with Russia.
Earlier this month, prior to the Russian invasion, Pelosi warned that Putin would "pay" regardless of whether he launched the invasion into Ukraine.
"There's a price to pay for what Putin has put us through now," she told reporters at the Munich Security Conference. "This isn't 'bully the world and then take a walk,' and you're off the hook."
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