Historian says Biden could be saved from Carter-esque foreign failure through Ukrainians' heroism

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Niall Ferguson on Biden's legacy of rampant inflation, foreign policy blunders

Historian Niall Ferguson joins 'Jesse Watters Primetime'

Until recently, former Democratic President Jimmy Carter might have been seen as the worst president in terms of American foreign policy, having ushered in the Iranian hostage crisis and a rapidly destabilizing Middle East. 

With the Biden administration's reticence to proactively help Ukraine, one historian told Fox News the Ukrainian president's and his people's heroism could have a tangential effect on helping Biden's widely-criticized behavior.

Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, and Jill Biden at the DNC. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

On "Jesse Watters Primetime," host Jesse Watters told historian Niall Ferguson that Biden's presidency is "teetering on the verge of a foreign policy cascade of disaster as bad and potentially worse than the Georgia Democrat experienced in 1979."

Watters alluded to how Carter's ineptitude led to a Republican trouncing in 1980 with the election of President Ronald Reagan.

"There is a way, Jesse," Ferguson responded, in terms of heading off a 1980-style landslide.

Photo of Ukraine President Zelenskyy and President Biden  (AP/Office of the President of Ukraine)

"It wasn't too hard to predict that Putin was going to invade Ukraine, I said it would happen back on Jan. 2. It's harder to predict where we go from here. The Russian war effort has not gone as planned," he added. "They are showing significant signs of being bogged down even with the inadequate armaments they've received from the West."

"The Ukrainians are fighting heroically for their freedom. And of course, the Russian economy is cratering, so there is a chance — it's a slim one — but there's just a chance that Putin is going to fail here."

If Putin fails to conquer Ukraine in his apparent quest to reconstitute the U.S.S.R., the then-victorious heroism of Ukrainians might take some heat off Biden, he said.

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Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images | Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS)

"I do think it's worth paying tribute to the heroic performance of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and of the Ukrainian people in fighting a superior force," Ferguson said.

"And so the thing that could save Biden at this point is actually the heroism of the Ukrainian people if they can fight the Russians to a standstill and stop Kiev from falling to the Russians — it will be at high cost, of course, in terms of life and destruction," he said. "But if they can do that, there's just a chance that Putin may fail."

"And the penalty for failure in Russian politics when it comes to war can be high."