National Security Council spokesman John Kirby repeatedly declined Wednesday to refer to Russia and China as "evil regimes" despite repeated questions on the subject.

Kirby fielded questions from reporters at Wednesday's briefing, including several asking why President Joe Biden has stopped short of calling Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin "evil," despite their clear record of human rights abuses.

"It's not a simple question. It's a criticism that you're posing as a question. You'd like to see us put a label on those two countries, and President Biden just doesn't conduct foreign policy that way," Kirby responded.

"Go look at the national security strategy. Go look at the national defense strategy. Take a look at anything that the president has said over his time as commander-in-chief about Russia and China, and you'll see that we are speaking pretty plainly to the American people and to those countries and those leaders about how we view their behavior, their conduct on the world stage, and our relationships with them," he continued. "We've been very, very honest about that."

Former President Donald Trump voiced similar logic when questioned about the war in Ukraine during his recent town hall with CNN.

Though the American government, allies, and the International Criminal Court have all labeled Putin a "war criminal" over his actions in Ukraine, Trump would not.

"If you say he’s a war criminal, it’s going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to make this thing stopped,” Trump said at the time. "If he’s going to be a war criminal, people are going to grab him and execute him, he’s going to fight a lot harder than he’s fighting under the other circumstance."

You can watch Wednesday's briefing in full below.