Former President Donald Trump, who is running to win his seat back from current President Joe Biden, told a friendly audience of Republican voters last night that Russian president Vladimir Putin "made a tremendous mistake" by invading Ukraine last year.
When asked who he thought would win the current war, he told his interviewer, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, “I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”
When asked how he would stop the war in 24 hours he said "I'll meet with Putin, I'll meet with Zelensky, they both have strengths and they both have weaknesses and in 24 hours it will be done."
Pressing him, Collins asked repeatedly, "But you won't say you want Ukraine to win this war?" Trump ignored the question, saying "I want Europe to put up more money."
Perhaps not surprisingly, the audience, which on a range of subjects, including his unapologetic responses to questions about January 6 and his recent sexual abuse conviction in civil court, applauded the president during this exchange. In poll after poll, Republicans have diverged from Democrats on this issue, including this most recent Pew survey on U.S. support for Ukraine, which found that less than half of Republicans trust Ukrainian President Zelensky to "to the right thing" on foreign affairs, and 70 percent saying Washington should focus instead on what is happening here at home.
If last night was any indication, Trump, who is the only declared Republican candidate for 2024 to come out forcefully against the current U.S. policy in Ukraine, plans to pursue that line, and it is resonating with rank and file Republicans — at least his base, which political analysts say is still formidable despite Trump's legal troubles and past performance as president. The other GOP contenders have displayed a conventionally hawkish view on the Ukraine, even criticizing Biden for not doing more, which Trump has suggested might actually lead to nuclear war.
Trump's notion of ending the war "in 24 hours" is certain to draw guffaws, even if his desire to end the war through "talking" is in the right place.
"It is highly unlikely that Trump will, as he claims, be able to end the war in Ukraine 'in 24 hours,'" noted my Quincy Institute colleague George Beebe.
"At this stage, simply getting Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table will likely require extensive, tough-minded multilateral diplomacy coordinated between Washington, NATO partners, and perhaps even Beijing."
When Trump was asked whether he supported sending more weapons and aid to Ukraine (Washington has already allocated over $113 billion, and of that, has now sent nearly $37 billion in weapons as of this week), he said, “we’re giving away so much equipment, we don’t have ammunition for ourselves right now. We don’t have ammunition for ourselves we’re giving away so much.”
When Collins pressed him to say whether Putin is a war criminal (the International Criminal Court has issued warrants for his arrest), Trump said:
"If you say he’s a war criminal it’s going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to make this thing stopped. If he’s going to be a war criminal, people are going to grab him and execute him, he’s going to fight a lot harder than he’s fighting under the other circumstance.”
Trump called Putin “a smart guy,” but said the Russian leader “made a tremendous mistake.”
“Of course he’s smart. They want you to say he’s a stupid person. He’s not a stupid person and he’s very cunning. Putin made a bad mistake in my opinion.”
“His mistake was going in. He would have never gone in if I was president.”
