Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday criticized President Biden's remarks last week warning about the possibility of nuclear usage from Russian President Vladimir Putin as "reckless."
Driving the news: Pompeo said on "Fox News Sunday" that Biden's comments are "a terrible risk to the American people."
- Pompeo, who served under former President Trump, added that the Biden administration would be more effective "executing quiet diplomacy."
- "We ought to be doing that, I hope that they're doing this quietly," he said.
The big picture: Biden last week warned that the U.S. faces the highest chance of "Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis."
- Putin is "not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming," Biden said at a fundraiser.
- National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Sunday also reacted to Biden's remarks on ABC's "This Week": "What the president was reflecting was that the stakes are high right now," he said.
What they're saying: Retired Adm. Mike Mullen also said he was "a little concerned" about Biden's remarks on ABC's "This Week."
- "I'm a little concerned about the language, which were about at the top," Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of Biden's remarks.
- "We're about at the top of the language scale and I think we need to back off that a little bit and do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table to try to resolve this thing."
Pompeo also said Sunday that the explosion on a Russian bridge on Saturday that links the Crimean Peninsula and the Russian mainland was a sign that Russian forces were struggling.
- "The Russian military is failing desperately," he said.
Go deeper... White House: Biden's "Armageddon" warning not based on any new intel
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a quote from retired Adm. Mike Mullen.
