Biden says U.S. had nukes in Ukraine and he took all of them out.

9 September 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Former U.S. President Joe Biden, in a 17 January 2025 interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that was effectively this President’s Farewell Address to the nation but has been suppressed instead of promoted by that network (and by all of the nation’s press), told him (in this 81 seconds long clip from it):

——

“The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell - Jan. 16 | Audio Only”

21:42

O’DONNELL: WHEN THIS WAR STARTED, THERE WAS A TREMENDOUS TENSION ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF NUCLEAR CONFRONTATION,

21:48

THE POSSIBILITY OF VLADIMIR PUTIN USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS. DID YOU HAVE ANY DIRECT COMMUNICATION

21:55

WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN TO DETER HIM FROM USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS? BIDEN: WELL, I DID.

22:00

WHEN HE STARTED TALKING ABOUT TACTICAL, I THOUGHT THIS GUY WANTS TO USE TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS. NO.

22:06

I DON'T WANNA DO THAT. I DON'T DO THAT. NUCLEAR WEAPONS,

22:11

TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE SCARES THE HELL OUT OF EVERYBODY, INCLUDING THE RUSSIANS, INCLUDING THE RUSSIANS.

22:18

AND SO WHAT I, I MADE IT CLEAR TO HIM, LOOK,

22:23

HE SAID TO ME THAT WHAT HE WANTED WAS HE WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE WERE NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE,

22:30

I MEAN, IN, UH, IN UKRAINE, THAT, UH, THERE WAS, THEY WEREN'T A MEMBER OF NATO,

22:36

AND, UH, THAT, UH, THEY WOULD NOT BE, UH, UH, AND HE,

22:41

HE STARTED OFF ONE OF THE CONVERSATIONS BY SAYING, I KNOW YOU CAN TAKE ME OUT TOMORROW. I KNOW YOU CAN TAKE THEM OUT TOMORROW FROM UKRAINE.

22:48

YOU CAN STRIKE MOSCOW. YOU CAN STRIKE. I SAID, THAT'S NOT A PROBLEM. WE'VE ALREADY TAKEN THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS OUT.

22:55

SO I TOOK THEM ALL OUT. THERE'S NONE THERE. WE'RE NOT GOING TO PUT YOU BACK IN, AND THEY'RE NOT GOING TO BECOME PART OF NATO UNTIL THEY CHANGE THEIR SYSTEM

23:02

SIGNIFICANTLY.

23:03

——

O’Donnell had no follow-up question to that. Not “When did we put our nuclear weapons into Ukraine?” Not “How did you take them out of Ukraine?” Not “Why were America’s nuclear weapons in Ukraine?” Not “Were our nukes positioned at Ukraine’s nearest border to The Kremlin, a mere 300 miles from it?” The total interview was 50 minutes, and that 81-second clip in it was less than half-way through the interview.

Perhaps a reporter ought to ask Trump whether he has put those weapons back into Ukraine, or intends to.

The only ‘news’-medium that picked up on this 81 seconds (or anything else in the interview) was the USAID-funded, NED-funded, Netherlands-Government-funded, Poynter Institute funded, U.S. Embassy-funded, “Vox Ukraine” (Voice of Ukraine), which did a “VoxCheck Team” “Fakes VoxCheck” on it, headlined “FALSE: The U.S. gave Ukraine nuclear weapons but took them back after threats from Russia”:

Verification within Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program

Russian Telegram channels are spreading a clip from a supposed interview with former U.S. President Joe Biden on MSNBC. In it, he allegedly admits that during Zelenskyi’s presidency, the U.S. brought tactical nuclear weapons to Ukraine but removed them after nuclear threats from Russia.

However, this is false. Biden was referring to weapons that were removed from Ukraine as part of nuclear disarmament in the 1990s. …

Biden did not state that the U.S. had given Ukraine nuclear weapons. He only said that nuclear weapons had been removed from Ukraine, without specifying when or what kind. Most likely, he was referring to the outcomes of nuclear disarmament resulting from a series of agreements in the 1990s. …

However, that’s not what Biden said. He said “We’ve already taken the nuclear weapons out. So I took them out.” He didn’t say that they had been Soviet nuclear weapons, which the Ukrainians had removed from Ukraine and delivered to Russia during 1994-96 in accord with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Biden hadn’t had anything to do with that event.

Furthermore: this wasn’t “a supposed interview,” but a real one. Furthermore, it’s also false for “Vox Ukraine” to say “Biden did not state that the U.S. had given Ukraine nuclear weapons.” Biden said the opposite: “We’ve already taken the nuclear weapons out. So I took them out.” Not that the Ukrainians and Russians did (take out the former Soviet weapons, during 1994-96). The liar in this is the U.S. empire and its “Vox Ukraine.” Perhaps Biden too had lied when he said “We’ve already taken the nuclear weapons out. So I took them out.” His propagandist, Lawrence O’Donnell, obviously had no desire to find out about that possible lie, so droped the matter there. And nobody except the U.S. empire lying-machine brought it up, and when they did, it was only in order to present to Ukrainians to quell Web-chatter about this, amongst them, by saying that this was only a “a supposed interview,” and by lying about what Biden said in it.

MSNBC also issued on the day of the interview, 17 January 2025, another youtube of it, this for their general audience,

“Biden shares 'serious concern' for U.S. democracy in Oval Office interview with Lawrence O'Donnell”

1,107,771 views Jan 17, 2025 #MSNBC #OvalOffice #Biden

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell joins Pres. Joe Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement, the Biden presidency, his warning about an oligarchy taking shape in America, and much more.

The currently 7,556 Comments to it there are worshipful of both Biden and O’Donnell, and I didn’t see in any of them any mention of this 81-second clip from it. Because O’Donnell didn’t want to probe Biden about that, no one apparently even noticed it.

So, we don’t know whether Biden lied there — he routinely lies, just like all recent U.S. Presidents. But the matter there was an extremely important historical matter, and so it OUGHT to be probed. If anyone in the U.S. empire cares to pursue it.

After all: Biden DID say that U.S. nukes had been in Ukraine, and that he had removed all of them.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.