Yes, but Joe was the only man the nation could agree upon to replace Donald Trump. It's as simple as that.
That comment about Putin as being a 'killer' gets to me, too. I know Putin probably OK'ed the poisoning of ex-spied and opposition leaders, but still not any different than what the USA would do. On wikipedia I found this:
In March 2020, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Brennan Center for Justice published a report indicating that Russia-linked social media accounts have been spreading Instagram posts calculated to sow division among American voters.[49][50] According to the report, Russian operatives were increasingly impersonating real political candidates and groups rather than creating fictional groups.[50] According to Twitter's head of site integrity, Russian agents also attempted in 2018 to create the impression of more election interference than is actually happening to undermine confidence in the process.[51] Shortly thereafter, the New York Times reported that according to American intelligence officials Russian operatives have been stoking via private Facebook groups anger among African Americans, emphasizing allegations of police brutality in the United States, highlighting racism in the United States against African Americans, and promoting and pressuring hate groups, including white and black extremist groups, in order to create strife within American society, though American intelligence officials provided few details about the alleged operations.[52] A CNN investigation found that Russian efforts had partly been outsourced to troll farms in Ghana and Nigeria.[53] In May 2020, Twitter suspended 44 accounts that exhibited behavior plausibly, but not definitively, indicative of Russian election interference tactics, including association with a Ghana troll farm.[54]
However, I think that Republicans didn't need much help from the Russians in accomplishing this as they seemed quite good at it all by themselves.