Former US president claims Russia’s incursion would never have happened if he was still in the White House.
ByNick Allen and Rozina Sabur, WASHINGTON EDITOR23 February 2022 •
Donald Trump has declared the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he was still president as he called Vladimir Putin a “genius”.
The former US president accused the current one, Joe Biden, of being “weak” in his response to Mr Putin’s sending of forces into separatist enclaves in the east of Ukraine.
Mr Trump said in an interview on Tuesday that he admired “tough cookie” Mr Putin, describing his latest move as “genius”.
“Putin declares a big portion of Ukraine as independent. That’s wonderful. How smart is that? This is genius,” he told The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
“I knew Putin very well. I got along with him great. He’s got a lot of great charm and a lot of pride. He loves his country.”
The 75-year-old said that as president, he would talk to Mr Putin about wanting to invade Ukraine. “I used to talk to him about it. I said, ‘You can’t do it. You’re not gonna do it’. But I could see that he wanted it.”
Mr Trump warned oil and gas prices would rise, to the benefit of the Russian president.
Mr Trump said: “I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done, during the Trump administration, what he is doing now, no way!
“Now it has begun, oil prices are going higher and higher, and Putin is not only getting what he always wanted, but getting, because of the oil and gas surge, richer and richer.”
The former US president added: “If properly handled, there was absolutely no reason that the situation currently happening in Ukraine should have happened at all.”
He said Russia had become “very, very rich” during the Biden administration, with oil prices “doubling and soon to be tripling and quadrupling.”
Mr Trump said: “The weak sanctions are insignificant relative to taking over a country and a massive piece of strategically located land.”
He said that, if he was still president, oil prices would have remained low.
“Now, what a mess our country is in,” he added.
Mr Trump has been largely quiet on the Ukraine crisis in recent weeks.
The Republican last mentioned the escalating situation during a rally in Texas in relation to immigration.
“Everyone in Washington is obsessing over how to protect Ukraine’s border – but the most important border in the world is not Ukraine’s border, it’s America’s border,” he said during the rally last month.
Mr Trump’s intervention came as the US Embassy in Ukraine mocked Mr Putin’s claims that communist Russia created the country.
The embassy posted images on social media depicting civilisation in Kyiv a millennium ago, alongside images of a forest to represent what Moscow would have looked like at the time.
Mr Putin claimed that “modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia” after the 1917 revolution in a fiery speech on Monday night.
The Russian president blamed the country’s former communist leader Vladimir Lenin for “dividing” Russia by “tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”
Mr Putin’s revisionist history is part of his effort to bring an independent, western-tilting Ukraine back under Russia’s orbit.
There are no words adequate enough to describe this despicable intervention. Trumpkov is glorying in slaughter.
Be nice if he it’s shut his mouth!!
Actually Putin is a genious because he quickly realized that Biden is a coward and an idiot and would not move a finger to help Ukraine. Trumpkov or not, it was him sending the first Javelins to Ukraine, not Obama. I agree that with a GOP president in Washington, a real Nato secretary and Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv none of this would be happening.
Looking at the mess the GOP are in at the moment, they have no chance of a POTUS in the next ten years unless they sort their shit out.
What are you talking about? Biden’s ratings are lower than ever, he will suffer a landslide defeat in both the Congress and Senate. My cat could run for the GOP in two years and would win the election.
From what I’ve been reading, the GOP are fighting among themselves more than they are fighting the Dems.
Indeed! On the button.
Although the Trumpet is right on Biden’s weakness, glorifying the piece of dog shit putin makes him into a traitor. He’ll never be president again, that’s for sure.
Focusser, respectfully, you’re getting your info from some weird places. The GOP is not in disarray. They know the issues that need to have focus. Suggest you broaden the sources of your reading material
The GOP is a mess. idiots like McConnell and Graham have no use for the base and take every opportunity to show their deep disgust for the hairy unwashed.