President Trump claimed Russia is “emboldened” to threaten Ukraine by the Biden administration’s weakness in a Saturday interview on “Fox & Friends.”
Responding to Biden’s handling of the situation between Russian and Ukraine, Trump said, “This should have never happened.” He added, “it would not have happened,” under his administration.
President Trump has previously indicated that the situation in Ukraine would have been unimaginable under the Trump administration. “They respected our country, and frankly, they respected our leader a year ago,” he said. “This is not something that was ever going to happen.”
He pointed at Joe Biden’s weak leadership during the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as the cause of Russia’s aggression toward its neighbor.
Trump told Fox News, “How we got here is when they watched Afghanistan, and they watched the most incompetent withdrawal in the history of probably any army, let alone just us, and President Xi and President Putin – watch what happens with China very soon with Taiwan – and they watched that, and they said: ‘What’s going on? They don’t know what they’re doing.’ And all of a sudden I think they got a lot more ambitious.”
Russia went from wanting to negotiate, to getting “emboldened” to advance plans to annex Ukraine, according to Trump.
“I think Putin really wanted to negotiate for a period of time, but when he watched Afghanistan when he watched that unbelievably bad withdrawal, incompetent, where they took the military out first, where they left $85 billion worth of equipment behind for the Taliban to have and to use and of course the deaths that happened – when they watched all of that I think they got emboldened,” he told the outlet.
Trump has routinely criticized how the Biden administration withdrew from Afghanistan, describing the situation as “stunning incompetence.”
Describing his amicable relationship with Putin, Trump explained, “I know him (Putin) very well, got along with him very well, I stopped his pipeline, I sanctioned them more than anybody ever sanctioned them.” He added, “No one was ever tougher on Russia, but I got along with Putin very well. We respected each other. I think you have a whole different ball game right now.”
Under President Trump, the United States military was respected around the world. Critics of the Biden administration have pointed out that the military is no longer respected by other nations as a result of the Afghanistan crisis. Trump believes this is what has motivated nations like Russia and China to become more aggressive.
Asked about Biden’s phone call with Putin, Trump told Fox News, “This is just an exercise, he’s not going to tell him anything and I don’t think Putin’s, at this point, going to be listening.”
As the world closely watches to see whether Russia will invade Ukraine, Americans are divided on how deeply the United States should involve itself in this situation. While some believe we should defend Ukraine, our ally, others believe we should take an isolationist stance on the conflict.
While the outcome of Ukraine’s independence hangs in the balance, Americans are beginning to see a radical difference between the strength of the United States under President Trump, and the country’s weakness under the Biden administration.
