Former US president Joe Biden on Wednesday gave his first major interview since leaving the White House, using the platform to criticise US president Donald Trump’s foreign policy and early decisions in office. Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, Biden defended his record, described his exit from the 2024 election, and warned of the risks Trump’s leadership poses to international stability. Biden called Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine should surrender land to Russia as part of a peace deal “modern-day appeasement,” comparing it to how European leaders gave in to Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. “I just don’t understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to take land that isn’t his, that it’ll satisfy him,” Biden said, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The former president also raised alarms about Trump’s stance on Nato. Biden, who helped expand the alliance to include Finland and Sweden, warned that Trump’s actions could lead to Nato’s collapse. “That would change the modern history of the world,” he said, adding that US allies are already questioning America’s reliability. Biden reflected on his own decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, saying it was a tough but necessary move. “Things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away,” he said. Still, he maintained that vice president Kamala Harris, who took over as the Democratic nominee, was a strong candidate. He also criticised Trump’s combative meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as “sort of beneath America” and dismissed talk of taking over Canada, Greenland, or the Panama Canal as “not who we are.” Asked about Trump’s first 100 days, Biden said bluntly,“I don’t see anything that’s triumphant.”