Biden: Zelenskyy ‘didn’t want to hear’ invasion warnings

President Joe Biden said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “didn’t want to hear it” when American intelligence gathered information in February that indicated Russia was preparing to invade his country.

Speaking to donors Friday at a Democratic fundraiser in Los Angeles, Biden talked about his work to rally support for Ukraine as the war continues into a fourth month.

“Nothing like this has happened since World War II. I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating. But I knew we had data to sustain” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “was going to go in.”

“There was no doubt,” Biden said. “And Zelenskyy didn’t want to hear it.”

Although Zelenskyy has inspired much of the world with his wartime leadership, his preparation for the invasion — or lack thereof — has been controversial.

In the weeks before the war began on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy publicly bristled as Biden administration officials repeatedly warned that a Russian invasion was likely.

At the time, Zelenskyy was concerned that the drumbeat of war was unsettling to Ukraine’s fragile economy.

Biden: ‘We need two more senators’

Also at his Los Angeles fundraisers on Friday, Biden urged Democratic donors to send him reinforcements on Capitol Hill to keep Republicans out of power and help dislodge his agenda from the current gridlock.

“We need two more senators,” Biden said at the Muholland Drive estate of entertainment mogul Haim Saban, a reference to Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Without naming either, he said they’re “slowing up what we’re able to do.”

At another fundraiser, with a couple dozen attendees on the back patio of the home of Andrew Hauptman, a private investor, Biden addressed rising prices nationwide.

“We’re going to live with this inflation for a while,” he said. It’s going to come down gradually, but we’re going to live with it for a while.”

Regarding gun violence, Biden mocked the idea that teachers should be armed, noting how long it takes to train a soldier to use a firearm.

Pantomiming a pistol with his fingers, he said, “It’s not easy to pick up a rifle or a gun and blow somebody’s brains out.”

ROBERTO E. ROSALES/THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL VIA AP President Joe Biden speaks with U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (left) and Ben Ray Luján on the tarmac upon his arrival in Albuquerque, N.M., Saturday. Biden said he was escalating federal assistance for New Mexico as it faces its largest wildfire in recorded state history.