Russian state-run TV channels mocked the United States presidential election after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new nominee.
Vladimir Solovyov, the host of a popular evening talk show broadcast on the Rossiya 1 channel and one of the Kremlin’s most loyal presenters, joked about the age of 81-year-old Biden, saying “Grandpa, if you’ve been taken hostage, wink.”
His show’s guests also questioned if the U.S. president was even aware of his withdrawal from the elections following his staggering debate performance last month.
“Everyone following the situation in the USA is wondering — is Biden himself aware of the statement issued under his signature saying that he is no longer participating in the election race?” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on air.
Another guest on Solovyov’s show, Andrey Sidorov, dean of international relations at Moscow State University, blasted the idea of Harris as the Democratic Party’s new nominee.
“Kamala with the nuclear button is worse than a monkey with a grenade,” Sidorov told viewers.
Rossiya 1 ran a segment on Biden’s statement with the title “tired and hurt,” with one of the channel’s correspondents in the U.S. saying: “It might have seemed that Joe Biden didn’t withdraw from the election race, but died.”
The Kremlin said late Sunday that it would continue to follow the election campaign, but otherwise stressed that Russia’s main priority was its ongoing war against Kyiv.
“The [U.S.] election is still four months away. And that’s a long time, during which a lot can change. We need to focus our attention, follow what happens next,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Telegram news channel Shot.