Biden criticizes Trump in the BBC interview

In his first broadcast interview since leaving the White House, former President Joseph R. Biden, President Trump's handling of war in Ukraine and his business with global allies and defended the time of his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential campaign.

Mr. Biden did not mention his successor in an interview with the BBC. In a departure from an unwritten rule of former president, he criticized some of Mr. Trump's actions as president – including his combative meeting in the Oval Office with President Volodymyr Zelensky from Ukraine in February.

“I found it under America in the way it took place,” said Herr Biden about the meeting during the interview, which was broadcast on Monday in Wilmington, del., And on Wednesday. He also pointed out calls from Mr. Trump to rename the Gulf of Mexico, to withdraw the Panama Canal and to acquire Greenland.

“What the hell is going on here? Which president ever speaks so? This is not the one we are,” said Mr. Biden. “We have freedom, democracy, chances, not about confiscation.”

Mr. Biden described the Trump government's proposal that the Ukraine took off the Crimea as part of a peace plan “Modern appeasement” to Russia. Regarding President Vladimir V. Putin from Russia, Mr. Biden said: “Anyone who thinks he'll stop is just stupid.”

Mr. Biden was asked if he thought he was supposed to get out of the 2024 presidential campaign. Mr. Biden announced his exit from the race on July 21, about 100 days before the election. “I don't think it would be important,” he told the interviewer Nick Robinson.