Bill O’Reilly: Biden not wrong, but still shouldn’t say this

(NewsNation) — Even though Bill O’Reilly thinks President Joe Biden was correct, the former Fox News host says he still got it wrong.

Biden is being criticized for saying during a speech in Poland last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” The White House clarified he was not calling for regime change, but the comment reads on paper as inflammatory.

“What Biden said is right. A guy like Putin can’t keep this up,” O’Reilly said during “On Balance with Leland Vittert” on Monday. But O’Reilly called it “unnecessary rhetoric.”

Instead, O’Reilly suggested Biden should point out that the sanctions America and European nations imposed on Russia will cause his economy to collapse and their citizens to demand change.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) faced similar blowback for tweeting March 3 “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.”

Though many in the West would likely prefer Putin gone, the concern is comments like Biden’s and Graham’s could be used as propaganda in Russia to further the narrative that the U.S. wants to wage war against them. European allies also worry Putin could use them as an excuse to escalate his war in (or even beyond) Ukraine.

Biden “doesn’t understand the words that he says at any given time,” O’Reilly said. “He is a man of the 60s. Right now … whatever you say is all over the internet in 10 minutes. He doesn’t think that way.”

Biden declined to walk back his comments at the White House on Monday.

“I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man,” Biden said. “I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”