Former US president Donald Trump has taken a swipe at Vladimir Putin, saying he ‘constantly’ uses the ‘N word’ – nope, not that one – and that the Russian leader is a ‘different person’ to the one he knew while he was in office.
Trump appeared on Fox Business Network today, 21 March, to discuss how he would put pressure on Russia to put a halt to its invasion of Ukraine, and ended up going on a bizarre rant about nuclear power... and whose was bigger.
Speaking via phone, he said: “But I listen to him constantly using the ‘N word’ – that's the ‘N word’ – and he’s constantly using it, the nuclear word. And we never talk about – we say, ‘Oh, he’s a nuclear power’, but we’re a greater nuclear power. We have the greatest submarines in the world, the most powerful machines ever built.”
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Trump said the US nuclear arsenal is ‘immensely powerful’, and that if it were put to use it would lead to the ‘tragedy of all tragedies’. The controversial politician and media personality then went on to claim Putin is now a vastly different person to the man he met when he served as the 45th President of the United States between 2017 and 2021, recalling how they had found common ground at the time.
Trump continued: “I got along with him, loving this country, and he loves his country, okay. But he’s a different person than he was, he seems to be different. It just doesn’t seem to be the same person I was dealing with.”
Trump said his administration ‘did well with Russia’, saying how the country ‘didn’t attack’ any others under his leadership, adding: “I’m the only one where that didn’t happen. And with Bush, they took Georgia, and they took Crimea with Biden and Obama. And now he said ‘To hell with it. Let’s take the whole thing’.”
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Jessica Pisano, an associate professor of politics at the New School for Social Research, explained in an article for Politico how she believed Putin didn't invade Ukraine while Trump was president because 'Putin was already getting what he wanted', as there was 'little daylight between Russia and the United States' on key issues like NATO, political leadership in Ukraine and undermining democracy.
“The truth is that during his administration, Trump’s policy alignment with Putin advanced the aims of Russia’s political elites, who could imagine that the United States was on their side,” Pisano added.
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Topics: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump
Jess Hardiman