Former US President Donald Trump is blaming his side for “almost forcing” Russian President Vladimir Putin to orchestrate Ukraine’s invasion.
According to him, should he have won the 2020 election and not President Joe Biden, the war between Russia and Ukraine would never have happened.
During an interview on Saturday morning on Real America’s Voice, a right-wing network, the former president said “Ukraine and Russia would not be fighting. It doesn’t mean they’d love each other, but there’s no way they’d be fighting, and there’s no way Putin would have actually gone in.”
“They actually taunted him, if you really look at it, our country and our so-called leadership taunted Putin,” Trump said. “I would listen, I would say, you know, they’re almost forcing him to go in with what they’re saying. The rhetoric was so dumb,” he added.
Trump did not provide any examples of how the US or President Joe Biden “taunted” Putin or what was the supposedly “dumb” rhetoric.
In the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump made the same baseless claim that Putin would not have invaded if he was still in power. He cited his positive relationship with the Russian leader.
“I knew Putin very well. I got along with him great. He liked me. I liked him,” Trump said during a “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” appearance on February 22. “I mean, you know, he’s a tough cookie, got a lot of the great charm and a lot of pride, and he loves his country.”
Trump also controversially described Putin’s justification for invading as “savvy” and “genius.”
Trump said the United States “taunted Putin” to the point “of almost forcing him” to invade Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/K29QW8aOoP
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) October 8, 2022