Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't... So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah... we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You're not the president. The president said — I said, call him. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars... I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid." - Meaning and context.">
Joe Biden, Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (Jan. 23, 2018), quoted in Bethania Palma (2019-10-09), "Does a C-SPAN Video Show Joe Biden ‘Confessing to Bribery’?", Snopes.com retrieved: 2020-03-12 (For context, see Glenn Greenwald quotes below in 'quotes about')

I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee [for Ukraine]. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't... So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah... we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You're not the president. The president said — I said, call him. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars... I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid.

— Joe Biden

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee [for Ukraine]. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't... So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah... we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You're not the president. The president said — I said, call him. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars... I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid." in the context of "Joe Biden, Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (Jan. 23, 2018), quoted in Bethania Palma (2019-10-09), "Does a C-SPAN Video Show Joe Biden ‘Confessing to Bribery’?", Snopes.com retrieved: 2020-03-12 (For context, see Glenn Greenwald quotes below in 'quotes about')" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Joe Biden" (Quotes, 2010s, 2018) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 05, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Joe Biden

About Joe Biden

Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama, and represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009.