Nigel Farage rips Biden: America now is 'no better than a bad joke' on the world stage

Nigel Farage, the former Brexit party leader, unloaded on President Joe Biden Thursday for his foreign policy failures, saying the U.S. is no longer being taken seriously following the bungled Afghanistan withdrawal.

Farage, who calls himself "the most pro-American Brit you'd ever meet" as he worked for U.S. companies 40 years ago, slammed the current administration's response to Russia and Ukraine and how it left the U.K. in Afghanistan.

"[I]n terms of its presence on the international stage, and what it says as the leader of the free world being taken seriously, America right now is no better than a bad joke," Farage told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

The U.S. and U.K. have been close allies since World War I, and Great Britain spent proportionally the same amount of money on Afghanistan during its 20 years there that America did, Farage recalled.

"Nobody wanted it to go on forever," Farage said of the war in Afghanistan, "but there had to be the right way, and the right moment, to leave. And for Biden to unilaterally withdraw the biggest force — the American force — without even referring to your closest allies in the world since 1917; and when the British prime minister calls to have an urgent conversation, not to return that phone call for 30 hours, how on earth could we trust America again?

"How on earth can NATO, frankly, continue to operate? And is it any wonder, given that situation, and given that collapse of leadership in the free world, that Putin is now taunting us from the borders of the Ukraine?"

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Farage also criticized U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson for breaking his own COVID-19 lockdown rules prior to lifting them.

"If you're the ones setting the rules by which the rest of the population has to abide, you cannot shirk those rules yourself, because, you know, you are responsible for them," he said. "Boris' personality problem is that he's a cheerleader, not a leader."

"[W]hen it comes to being a leader, he doesn't always lead by example," Farage explained, noting that the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street in London has "become rather like a university drinking den."

While Farage admitted he enjoys drinking and partying himself, "you don't drink in office," he said. "Because if you drink in the office, it's the beginning of total indiscipline.

"And sadly, Johnson has overseen a culture where those that were making the rules were constantly having get-togethers in direct contravention of what they were telling the rest of the country, and Johnson himself attended some of these events."

If Johnson had been upfront and apologized for breaking his COVID rules, the British people would have likely forgiven him, Farage said, but instead he denied it and was proven to have lied about it.

Johnson made excuses for the infractions, Farage noted, recalling how the prime minister claimed he "thought it was a work event … [and] said the other day, 'No one told me it was against the rules.'

"Well, hang on, matey, you were setting the rules. So what actually happened in the country is millions of people have said, 'You know, you told us to behave in one way, you behaved in another, and the hell with you.'

"And so he really, actually, reputationally [sic], this isn't just a short-term upset … I believe this is a fundamental breakdown of trust. And as such, I think his career is now very time-limited."