In his book, McCormick describes a joint press conference between Biden and Vladimir Putin when the Russian leader had Biden’s microphone suddenly shut off — an incident he said was never reported by the news media.
“[Putin’s] message was unmistakable: I’m in charge of the room, I’m in charge of my country, and I’m in charge of the reset,” McCormick wrote. “As you might imagine, the vice president’s staffers were furious with the Russians. I was instructed to have the transcript reflect how the vice president had been cut off in mid-sentence.”
The official
White House transcript of the March 2011 encounter shows Biden’s comments ending suddenly.
“There’s a reason. Mr. Prime Minister, I’ve been around a long time. The first time I was here — the second time I was here, I was here meeting with President Brezhnev. We were trying to pass SALT II –,” it said.
“He basically got body slammed by Putin, really. I mean, I don’t know how else to describe it,” McCormick told the Free Beacon. “To me it was like, here’s our great foreign policy expert and he just got punk’d. And Vladimir Putin just had no fear or respect for him.”
