Biden Apologized To CNN Reporter Kaitlan Collins After Telling Her That She’s ‘In The Wrong Business’ In Response To A Question About Putin

Biden is wrapping up his G7 Summit trip which consisted of a grueling schedule filled with awkward group photos and hours-long sitdowns with world leaders. That might be why the typically jovial president appeared to snap at a CNN reporter just doing her job during a recent press conference.

After a three-hour chat with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden gave a recap of what the two talked about to the press. In his speech, Biden laid out his stance on the human rights violations happening in the country and revealed he had broached the topic of political cyberattacks with Putin. but he didn’t offer any concrete plans on how the U.S. would respond if Putin ignores his warnings about interfering with our electoral process or executing Russian anti-corruption activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny. (Navalny is currently in prison, and Putin has gone on record suggesting he might not make it out alive.) Basically, there could be a lot of posturing going on and not much else.

So, when CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asked why President Biden seemed so confident that Putin would change his behavior following their meeting, it felt like a pretty fair question that deserved a direct answer. Instead, Biden chided Collins for being “in the wrong business” if she couldn’t understand the unstated threat of sanctions Biden had alluded to — but never actually deployed — during their chat.

And it wasn’t just Collins who earned the president’s ire during the summit. Before Biden boarded Air Force One, another reporter asked about his outburst after Collins’ question, and he used the opportunity to drag journalism, as a whole, for being a very pessimistic occupation.

(Just like film criticism doesn’t mean you completely hate a film, asking relevant and balanced questions of a president doesn’t mean you have “a negative view of life.”)

Just a few minutes after that interview though, Biden returned to the press corps and delivered Collins a personal apology for how he reacted to her statement. “I apologize for having been short before,” Biden told the press before detailing why he was choosing to remain positive about his meeting with Putin and the changes it might bring. And Collins, in talking with her colleagues on air, graciously accepted the apology, insisting that as president, Biden didn’t need to make one but that she appreciated it all the same.

We guess the moral of the story here is that even world leaders get snippy sometimes?