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(Trends Wide) — Former US President Donald Trump defended his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, also calling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “a brave man” amid Russia’s deadly invasion of his country.
“He’s a brave man, he’s hanging in there,” Trump said of Zelensky in comments at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), even as he refused to back down from praising Putin as “smart.”
“The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, is smart,” Trump said. “The problem is that our leaders are fools…and so far, they let him get away with this travesty and assault on humanity.”
“Putin is playing with [el presidente Joe] Biden like a drum and it’s not a pretty thing to see,” he continued.
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin in the days since Russian troops crossed into Ukraine and began launching rocket attacks on the country’s capital, Kyiv. His comments about Zelensky come days after he lavished praise on Putin, calling the Kremlin leader a “genius” and “expert” in a radio interview. Those comments were the latest in many instances in which the former US president approved or admired authoritarian rulers. In addition to Putin, Trump has previously made positive comments about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
But other Republicans have avoided admiring the Kremlin leader. In back-to-back appearances at CPAC, potential Republican presidential hopefuls echoed Trump’s criticism of the Biden administration, but stopped short of congratulating Putin as the former president has done.
Although Trump tempered his praise for the Kremlin leader with strong condemnations of Putin’s decision to “mercilessly attack” Ukraine, he saved his strongest criticism for Biden and the elected Democrats.
“The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling. It is an outrage and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to happen,” Trump said at the conservative rally in Orlando. “I have no doubt that President Putin made the decision for him…only after seeing the pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Thirteen US servicemen were killed in a bomb attack at Kabul airport during the Biden administration’s withdrawal this summer from Afghanistan, which has since fallen under Taliban control.
The former president, who was first indicted during his presidency after using security assistance to Ukraine as bait to pressure the country’s officials to investigate his political rival, also tried to take credit for arming Ukraine in his Saturday statements.
“I gave Ukraine the javelins that everyone is talking about now and millions of dollars worth of other military equipment. The Obama administration gave them blankets,” Trump said.
Trump said that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he was still president and falsely claimed that the 2020 election had been stolen.
“Under Biden, Russia invaded Ukraine. I am the only president of the 21st century in whose term Russia did not invade another country,” Trump said, as he described the global perception of the United States during his presidency as “powerful, cunning and smart”.
“Under our administration, Russia respected the United States,” he told the crowd.
Despite Biden routinely adopting new sanctions against Russia during his time in office, Trump claimed that the Biden administration was letting Putin go “without any repercussions” by responding to his large-scale invasion of Ukraine with an export embargo. and new sanctions on Russian banks and oligarchs. Biden unveiled a new round of sanctions on Thursday after Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine.
“Putin is saying, ‘sanction me?’ Well, I’ve been sanctioned for the last 25 years,” Trump said, calling Biden’s response earlier this week a “pretty weak statement.”
Other Republicans who took the stage at CPAC this week also encouraged the Biden administration to crack down on Putin, though they refused to use the same positive rhetoric about Russia’s leader that Trump has so often deployed.
“A strong American president would work with European partners to replace their Russian oil supplies with American energy, and they would hit Putin where it really hurts: in the Russian energy sector. If Joe Biden can’t or won’t do these things, then he should resign,” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said in a speech Friday.
Trump also used his appearance Saturday to briefly re-litigate his first impeachment trial of 2019, which came after he used security assistance for Ukraine as bait to pressure the country’s officials, including Zelensky, to investigate Ukraine. their political rivals.
“That was really a scam,” Trump said of the impeachment proceedings.
And he strongly hinted that he intends to run for the White House again in 2024, telling the Orlando crowd that voters will show the country that the “sleeping giant” has woken up “beginning on November 8th and then even more in November 2024.
“We did it twice and we will do it again,” Trump said.
Trump has yet to formally announce his intentions for a future presidential bid, but he continues to take steps that suggest he is preparing for a rematch with Biden. Trump made a similar comment at CPAC last year, shortly after losing to his Democratic opponent.
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