Former President Donald Trump has slammed Joe Biden for ‘playing into Putin’s hands’ in an interview with Sean Hannity.
Trump spoke to Hannity via phone call on the FOX News show, laying into his successor Biden while on the topic of the ongoing Ukraine Russia conflict.
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Thursday, Trump said: ‘I rebuilt our whole nuclear arsenal. Stronger, bigger and better than ever before.
‘It’s better and bigger than Russia. He should say we are a nuclear nation, we don’t want war and we don’t want to wipe out Russia.
‘This is the way he should be talking, he isn’t talking about our nuclear capability.
‘Instead, he keeps saying that they are a nuclear nation, we don’t want war. He is playing right into Putin’s hands when he does that.’
Former President Donald Trump has slammed Joe Biden for ‘playing into Putin’s hands’ in an interview with Sean Hannity (pictured) Trump spoke to the talk host via phone call on the FOX News show, laying into his successor Biden while on the topic of the ongoing Ukraine Russia conflict
Talk host Hannity also asked Trump if he views people like Putin as enemies that he needed to keep closer to him, to which the ex-President responded: ‘I got along with these people well. ‘That doesn’t mean they are good people’ (pictured with Putin in 2017 at the APEC summit)
Talk host Hannity also asked Trump if he views people like Putin as enemies that he needed to keep closer to him, to which the ex-President responded: ‘I got along with these people well.
‘That doesn’t mean they are good people.
‘It doesn’t mean anything other than the fact I understood them and perhaps they understood me. Maybe they understood me even better, that’s OK, because they knew there’d be a big penalty.’
Trump added that the Russian invasion of Ukraine ‘truly is a crime against humanity’ which ‘has to end soon’.
‘The problem with Putin is he’s got a very big ego,’ he explained.
The 30-minute exchange between Trump and Hannity saw the former President being asked about previous comments made about Putin, describing the Russian President’s recognition of two breakaway Ukrainian ‘republics’ as independent as ‘genius’ and ‘smart’ (pictured in June 2017 during his Presidency)
‘If he ends now, it’s going to look like a big loss for him, even if he takes a little extra territory.’
The 30-minute exchange saw the former President being asked about previous comments he made about Putin, describing the Russian President’s recognition of two breakaway Ukrainian ‘republics’ as independent as ‘genius’ and ‘smart’.
Hannity put these comments to Trump: ‘I think you also recognise he’s evil, do you not?’
To which Trump stressed that the comments were made pre-invasion of Ukraine.
‘Well, I was referring to the fact that he said this is an independent nation, talking about Ukraine,’ said Trump, ignoring the question of whether Putin is ‘evil’ or not.
‘Now, a lot of things are changing, when you look, this doesn’t seem to be the same Putin that I was dealing with.
Fox’s Sean Hannity asked for Trump’s response to the images seen of war-torn Ukraine: ‘You see what is happening with Putin, he invaded a sovereign country. You see that a maternity hospital was hit yesterday, entire neighbourhoods have been levelled.
‘We’ve seen dead bodies of men, women and children in the streets of Ukraine.’
Trump said that Biden, pictured in February at the White House, should say that the US is a ‘nuclear nation’ and that ‘we don’t want war and we don’t want to wipe out Russia’, instead talking about America’s ‘nuclear capability’
Trump insisted that the invasion of Ukraine would not have happened should he have been in office: ‘My reaction is that it’s so sad because it would have never happened if we would have had the Trump administration.
‘There was no chance that this would have happened.
‘I know him well, and this wasn’t something that was going to happen at all. Next, let’s see what happens, but just watch.’
He then spoke about how Biden brought the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan to an end in August 2021 after the last remaining troops were withdrawn.
In his campaign for Presidency, Joe Biden promised voters that he would end America’s ‘longest war’.
The President of the US defended his decision to withdraw the troops, which led to the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan, by saying that staying longer ‘was not an option’.
The US-led troops went to Afghanistan in 2001 after former President Bush signed a law joint resolution to give authorisation for the use of force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, which killed 2,996 people in four coordinated terrorist attacks.
‘When this horrible, horrible situation happened in Afghanistan, it’s not even believable how incompetent it was,’ Trump said.
When asked if he believed Putin to be evil, Trump kept his response vague: ‘When you look, this doesn’t seem to be the same Putin I was dealing with’ (Putin pictured in Moscow, Russia in February)
‘The way they withdrew, surrendered, or whatever you want to call it, bad things started happening for our country.
‘The borders’ bad, a lot of things are bad, inflation is bad, but the way they got out of Afghanistan looked like a complete surrender.
‘And I’ll tell you, Putin was watching, leaders in Iran were watching, President Xi was watching, Kim Jong-un was watching, North Korea. They were all watching Sean.
‘I’ll tell you, bad things started to happen, they no longer respect our country and that’s how this came about.’
‘A lot of things are changing,’ Trump added. ‘This doesn’t seem to be the same Putin that I was dealing with, but I tell you he wouldn’t have changed if I were dealing with him.’
Continuing this conversation with Hannity, Trump noted that under his administration, in 2018, he agreed to provide Ukraine with $47million worth of lethal weapons, which included 210 Javelin anti-tank missiles and 37 launchers.
The former President was hesitant of the sale because he viewed Ukraine as a corrupt nation, insisting it ‘needed to pay the US back’, with the conditions outlining that anti-tankers had to be kept in western Ukraine, away from conflict.
‘You know, I supplied, and I know Biden is trying to take credit, they’re all trying to take credit about many of the incredible things that we did in the Trump administration,’ said Donald Trump.
‘But we supplied the anti-tank busters, they’re called javelins, without them you wouldn’t have anything like what’s happening.
‘They’re knocking out the tanks one after another, after another. This has become a much tougher situation.
‘Also, gunnery for knocking out the aircraft. A lot of aircraft have been knocked out of the air, that’s why everyone’s saying, “how come there aren’t very many Russian planes overhead?”, well we hit them with the stingers and all the other things that we supplied.
‘We supplied tremendous amounts of equipment so they could defend themselves and they have done a great job.
‘You look at what’s happening with the planes, though, and that’s all botched up. Planes from Poland are all botched up. It’s a terrible thing to be watching.’
Hannity asks Trump if he would have provided planes to Ukraine, now that they are ‘showing a willingness to take on Putin and fight’, with Trump responding: ‘Well I would’ve done it a lot differently to how they’ve done it.
‘What they’ve done is terrible.
‘A lot of things are changing,’ Trump added in his interview with Sean Hannity. ‘This doesn’t seem to be the same Putin that I was dealing with, but I tell you he wouldn’t have changed if I were dealing with him’ (pictured shaking hands with Putin in 2019 as President of the US)
‘Biden, every time he gets up he says, “they are a nuclear nation”, he should say we are a nuclear nation.’
‘I understood them and they understood me,’ Trump added.
‘Nobody was ever tough on Russia like I was. Putin will tell you.’
The 75-year-old former President said Putin is in a ‘a lot of trouble right now’ and ‘in a bad corner’, and that he believes the Russian President wishes he hadn’t started ‘this mess’.
‘This is turning into a disaster,’ Trump said.
‘Putin is having a lot of trouble right now because he thought this was gonna be a 48-hour deal, and Ukrainians are good fighters.’
Sean also asked Trump about how he can he so confident that under his administration, the invasion of Ukraine would not have happened.
‘In the Biden-Obama administration in 2014, they annexed Crimea, nothing happened when you were President,’ Sean Hannity said.
‘Now this has happened with Ukraine once again, invading the whole country and innocent men, women and children are getting killed.
‘Let me ask you, you say under your administration, this would have never happened, why do you say that with such confidence?’
Trump was quick to make reference to the Bush administration and its part on the Russian-Georgian war in 2008: ‘Before I answer that I’ll tell you, under the Bush administration, it was Georgia.
‘Not the Georgia that we know and love but Georgia nevertheless, there was Georgia. But nothing happened during our administration, and that includes with Taiwan, now they’re flying bombers right over the middle of Taiwan.
‘That didn’t take place, nobody discussed it. But I also had the conversation with President Xi of China. I had a very strong conversation with President Putin and he understood, and I won’t go into the great details of this conversation because nobody has to know that, but I tell you, it never, ever, would have happened if I was President, the Trump administration in [the White House].
‘[We had] tremendous years, tremendous success, economy, energy, independence, the largest tax cuts in the history of our country, that helped bring about the greatest economy we have ever had.’
He also touched on inflation that Americans are facing at the gas stations, as well as Kamala Harris who he described as a ‘madwoman’ after she was slammed for laughing in response to a question about Ukrainian refugees.
Trump said: ‘You could really reduce inflation fairly rapidly if you could solve the energy problem.
‘Normal, beautiful, midwestern states are paying four or five dollars [a gallon] … it’s gonna be a shock like this country hasn’t had in a long time.’
Kamala Harris (left) has been slammed for laughing off questions about the refugee crisis resulting from the Russian attack on Ukraine. At the press conference in Warsaw on Thursday, stood next to Polish President Andrzej Duda (pictured right), she dodged inquiries on why a deal for sending fighter jets to Kyiv fell through
On Vice President Harris, Trump said: ‘I just watched the Vice President laughing about the horrible situation with immigration.’
Kamala Harris has been slammed for laughing off questions about the refugee crisis resulting from the Russian attack on Ukraine.
At the press conference in Warsaw on Thursday, stood next to Polish President Andrzej Duda, she dodged inquiries on why a deal for sending fighter jets to Kyiv fell through.
When asked about the issue of refugees, Harris looked at Polish President Duda like she expected him to respond first, then cackled through her comment: ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed.’
The vice president’s now commonplace laughter at inappropriate moments with world leaders was met with widespread criticism.
‘It was almost like the laugh of a madwoman, to be laughing about that… it’s a sad situation. We have people in there that are grossly incompetent.’
‘I think we’re gonna have a tremendous victory in the House,” Trump said of his thoughts for the rest of 2022 and 2024, when he will be standing for Presidency once again.
‘I think a lot of people are going to be very happy in 2024.’
