What happened to Tough Guy Joe Biden?

If you watched President Joe Biden’s press conference on Thursday afternoon, you wouldn’t know you were looking at the same man who allegedly looked Vladimir Putin in the eyes and told him he had no soul. Hell, based on Biden’s weak performance you might start to question whether or not he actually confronted and defeated a straight-razor-carrying bad dude named Corn Pop outside of a Delaware swimming pool in 1962.

The president seemed to want to follow the theme of his last press conference: “Saying the Quiet Part Loud.”

Who can forget the recent two-hour presser in which Biden essentially green-lit a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine. While the president learned his lesson about attempting long pressers (this one was under twenty-five minutes), he still managed to make waves.

The first head-scratching moment came after ABC’s Cecilia Vega pointed out that sanctions “have not been enough to deter Vladimir Putin.”

True to form, the president responded with no filter and said, “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.”

Clearly Biden forgot that everyone in his administration, from secretary of state Antony Blinken to Vice President Kamala Harris, had been alleging that the purpose of the sanctions was deterrence. In just a few seconds, Biden contradicted all of the word salads his team of Avengers had been tossing for the past few weeks.

Later, Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Biden, “You’re confident that these devastating sanctions are going to be as devastating as Russian missiles and bullets and tanks?”

Biden replied, “Yes.. Russian bullets, missiles, and tanks in Ukraine. Yes, I am.”

So just to recap: according to Joe Biden, these pointless sanctions — that were never meant to prevent anything from happening — are as devastating as the Russian missiles, bullets and tanks that are raining down on Ukraine.

Got it? Me neither.

Immediately after Doocy, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Biden, “If sanctions cannot stop President Putin, what penalty can?”

The president replied, “I didn’t say sanctions couldn’t stop him.”

If Biden were even slightly more coherent, I’d swear at that point he was trolling us.

So what happened to the guy who threatened to take Trump behind the gym? After all, President Biden has plenty of bravado when he is blasting Ron DeSantis from the bully pulpit. He does not mince words when he attacks and scapegoats unvaccinated Americans.

When it came time to flex his foreign policy prowess, America and the world saw Withdrawal Joe. Who can forget the image of Joe Biden dropping his head in his hands while reporters asked him about the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan? Vladimir Putin certainly didn’t.

To make matters worse for Biden, the septuagenarian had bragged multiple times about what a not-to-be-messed-with contender he would be for Vladimir Putin. In one tweet from February 2020, Biden wrote, “Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be president. He doesn’t want me to be our nominee. If you’re wondering why — it’s because I’m the only person in this field who’s ever gone toe-to-toe with him.”

But in the early hours of Thursday morning when Russia began their full-fledged attack on Ukraine, the president could barely go toe-to-toe with the teleprompter.

I am by no means suggesting that Joe Biden needed to enter the East Room and declare something major — like that the United States is sending troops into Ukraine.  A recent AP-NORC poll revealed 74 percent of Americans do not think the US should play a significant role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. I happen to agree.

That being said, is it too much to hope that the leader of the free world at least appears semi-cognizant in a moment of crisis? Call me old-fashioned I guess.

After decades of posturing and tall tales, Joe Biden’s tough talk turned out to be just that — talk.