Joe Biden likes to tell wild, farcical stories that make him seem like a much tougher figure than he is. It’s kind of his thing, and it’s only gotten worse as his obvious mental decline has accelerated. I suppose his memory isn’t what it used to be, and that means he has less of a filter.

During Biden’s recent interview with George Stephanopoulos, he decided to share another likely tall tale. This one revolved around Vladimir Putin, one of the favorite foils of the president. And while history dictates that Biden has never been much of a match for the Russian tyrant, he wants you to think otherwise so you get this.

Biden tells Stephanopoulos he once told Putin "I said, I looked in your eyes and I don't think you have a soul. He looked back at me and said, 'we understand each other.'"

— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) March 17, 2021

Go ahead and file this under things that didn’t happen. Putin is a bad guy, but he’s not a cartoon character. There’s also no way Biden would have kept this story in the closet until now (he claims the exchange happened in 2011). The current White House resident would have been bragging about it the day it happened if it had actually happened. That’s his style. He’s a big-talking draft dodger who wears aviators and bomber jackets. Biden’s foremost desire in life is to appear to be the pinnacle of manliness when he’s clearly not. That’s how you get him threatening to beat up Donald Trump multiple times during the 2020 campaign.

Let’s also remember that Biden, while serving in the Obama administration, mocked the idea that Russia was even a threat. Does this sound like a guy who was staring deeply into Putin’s eyes to access his lack of a soul?

Biden says he told Putin this in 2011. All these tweets from Biden are from 2012, trashing Romney over his warnings about Putin — Biden downplayed the Russia threat to attack a political opponent & win an election. (Romney was right, Biden was wrong, Putin ultimately benefited.) https://t.co/v0JUylk0nR pic.twitter.com/5PZgSGr9Sc

— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) March 17, 2021

Besides, doesn’t this claim sound rather familiar? I seem to remember another president claiming to have looked into Vladimir Putin’s soul. That would be George W. Bush. What probably happened here, at least in my opinion, is that Biden remembered that and then morphed the story to fit his wannabe tough-guy persona. This despite the fact that he was actually dismissing Russia as a threat at the time.

None of it makes sense because it’s not meant to make sense. It’s just a throwaway line that Biden and his handlers know the media will eat up. Look how firm he was with Putin! Russia is our biggest threat! Meanwhile, while Democrats and the press keep obsessing over what is ostensibly a bankrupt third-world country, China is planning its world domination. Perhaps we will get on that issue after making sure we have a sufficient number of maternity flight suits.