The former US president doubled down on his praise of Vladimir Putin and his criticism of Joe Biden on Wednesday, as the United States and Russia appear to suffer a major rift in relations amid Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Donald Trump released a statement early Wednesday morning saying that the Russian president was playing his American counterpart “like a drum” and apparently ignoring criticism he’s received over the past day for his overly flattering view of Putin.
Putin plays Biden like a drum. Not fun to watch! The former president said in one of his Twitter comments from his office.
Hours after Trump’s statement, Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine. Hearing the sounds of gunshots and explosions in Kiev shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a Russian military operation against Ukraine, local and international media reported Thursday morning.
Trump’s latest comments come as Republican Party critics, such as Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, have sharply criticized his earlier comments criticizing Biden for what is believed to be unresponsive to Russia’s decision to increase troops in the disputed Crimea region.
Finally, Trump spoke on Tuesday about the current crisis after ignoring it for days, blaming his successor for failing to prevent Russian troops from entering Crimea in 2014, during an interview with right-wing hosts Buck Sexton and Clay Travis. During the interview, he took several opportunities to embrace the alleged intelligence of Putin’s strategy.
I went yesterday and there was a TV screen and I said, This is genius. Putin declares a large part of Ukraine – from Ukraine. Putin declares it an independent state. “Oh, that’s cool,” Trump said on Tuesday, referring to Putin’s decision to recognize two separate regions in eastern Ukraine as Russian.
I said: How smart is this? Mr. continued. trump card.
The comments drew criticism from some of his staunch Republican opponents, including the Republicans on the Jan. 6 committee, while others, such as Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, chose to ignore his comments and instead made less scathing calls for more action on the ground. Ukraine support.
“Former President Trump’s cajoling of Putin today – including calling him a ‘genius’ – is helping our enemies,” Cheney wrote on Twitter. Trump’s interests do not appear to align with those of the United States of America.
Kinzinger, responding to a tweet from a House Republican account attacking Biden for allegedly showing “weakness,” added Kinzinger: “You can criticize politics, but that’s crazy and it feeds into Putin’s story. But hey, Amiri tweeted?”
Others in the party are usually seen as more in line with the former president’s isolationist positions on foreign policy, such as Senator Josh Hawley, who chose not to praise Putin and beat Biden to increase US involvement in him, and Eastern Europe.
The former president has previously been accused of being too bland or exaggerated in his praise of Putin over the years, especially after US intelligence officials said US agencies agreed that Trump’s 2016 campaign was supported. Attempts by the Russian government to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In particular, he was accused of taking Mr. Putin’s view of the story as fact that called into question that consensus after meeting the Russian leader in Helsinki during his presidency and sharing a platform with him for a joint press conference.
