According to former President Donald Trump, it was because of him that Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders stayed away from attacking other countries, and President Joe Biden is squarely to blame for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
During a New York Post interview with Michael Goodwin at Mar-A-Lago just a day before Putin abandoned all pretense and invaded Ukraine, Trump talked about how he dealt with world leaders while he was in office.
“I got along great with Putin,” he said. “I like him, I respect him. He’s doing his thing, but our people aren’t doing theirs.”
“We will not defend you”
He also talked about how he got NATO members to pay at least some of the billions of dollars they owed in NATO dues rather than leaving the U.S. to pay it all.
When the Austrian leader at the time asked Trump if the U.S. would still defend NATO members if they didn’t pay up what they owed, Trump said he told them, “No, we will not defend you.”
While the leaders argued that such a lack of action would violate the NATO charter, they still paid up. That’s the thing about Trump–leaders at least believed he might be crazy enough to follow through on his threats.
Biden isn’t even bothering to make threats, at least not believable ones.
Believable threats
According to stories by those who surrounded Trump when he was president, he also made threats to Putin and China’s Xi Jinping about what would happen if they made any land grabs while he was commander-in-chief.
“If you move against Ukraine while I’m president,” Trump reportedly told Putin, “I will hit Moscow.”
When Putin reportedly said “no way,” Trump followed up with “All those beautiful golden turrets will be blown up.”
And while all the metrosexual modern anti-war leaders on the left are surely aghast to hear that Trump threatened that kind of attack on Russia, it has become clear that world leaders need to know that force is not out of the question when they think about making aggressive moves that could destabilize the balance of the world order and negatively impact the U.S.
