Former President Donald Trump has disclosed his precise strategy, months after boasting he could put an end to Russia’s assault on Ukraine in a single day after retaking the White House.
In an appearance with Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Trump described how he thinks he could resolve the dispute. In his opening remarks, Trump said that international leaders are smart and that his replacement, President Joe Biden, is ill-equipped to cope with them.
These are intelligent people, including French President Emmanuel Macron. I could mention everyone on the list, including (Vladimir) Putin… These individuals are nasty, tough, and generally savage. Trump then attacked Biden, saying, “They’re vicious, and they’re at the top of their game.”
‘We have a man that has no clue what’s happening. It’s the most dangerous time in the history of our country.’
Host Maria Bartiromo pressed Trump on his prior claim.
‘So what should be the response?’ she said. ‘You said you could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. How would you do that?’
Trump replied that he knows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ‘very well’. He added that Zelensky was ‘very honorable’ because ‘he didn’t even know what they were talking about’ when ‘they asked him about the perfect phone call’.
He was referring to a July 2019 call between himself and Zelensky, in which Trump offered a ‘quid pro quo’ agreement to pressure Zelensky into pushing conspiracy theories about his 2020 opponent Biden in exchange for aid from the US.
Bartiromo cut Trump off and said, ‘Well, that’s not going to be enough for Putin to stop bombing Ukraine.’
Trump proceeded to elaborate on his plan.
‘No, no, no. No, I’m not saying that. I… what I’m saying is that I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good, with both of them,’ Trump said.
‘I would tell Zelensky: No more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin: If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give them a lot. We’re going to give them more than they ever got, if we have to.’
He reiterated his claim: ‘I will have the deal done in one day, one day.’
Trump in May told GB News, ‘If I were president, and I say this, I will end that war in one day, it would take 24 hours.
Some Republicans interpreted Trump’s remarks as him favoring possibly sending even more aid to Ukraine than Biden has. His comments ‘commenced an all-out freakout among the GOP’s Ukraine funding skeptics’, noted Washington Post writer Aaron Blake.
In his analysis, Blake wrote that Trump is actually ‘talking about playing hardball. The idea is that he’s going to bluff to both sides – or at least one side (you pick which) – until they reach a deal’.
‘Credit to Bartiromo for actually getting Trump to offer something more about a promise that had been, up to this point, a platitude without a plan,’ wrote Blake. ‘What she revealed was nothing amounting to a thoroughly considered course of action – just a bluff that she, deliberately or not, called.