Donald Trump lashed out at the media and Republican ‘warmongers’ in an angry statement on Tuesday for ‘misrepresenting’ his comments calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘genius’ for invading Ukraine.
The former president blamed ‘Biden, NATO, and the West’ for Moscow’s unprovoked attack on its neighbor and accused them of doing nothing while Putin declared two breakaway separatist regions of Ukraine to be independent republics, which then allowed their pro-Russia leaders to invite the Kremlin’s troops.
It comes as reports indicate President Joe Biden will close United States airspace to Russian planes as the latest punitive measure against Putin during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
‘The RINOs, Warmongers, and Fake News continue to blatantly lie and misrepresent my remarks on Putin because they know this terrible war being waged against Ukraine would have never happened under my watch,’ Trump said.
‘They did absolutely nothing as Putin declared much of Ukraine an “independent territory.” There should be no war waging now in Ukraine, and it is terrible for humanity that Biden, NATO, and the West have failed so terribly in allowing it to start.’
Trump claimed Biden’s environmental measures over the last year were to blame for Russia’s decades-old position as a top oil and gas exporter.
Trump took aim at ‘Biden, NATO and the West’ and blamed the US and its allies for allowing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
Civilians train to throw Molotov cocktails to defend the city, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Zhytomyr, Ukraine March 1. Putin personally gave Kremlin troops the order to invade late last week
Pro-Russian separatists, in uniforms without insignia, gather in the separatist region of Donetsk region
Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on Monday, which reportedly killed three children among others
Fire engines are pictured during the response effort to the shelling of Russian invaders outside the Kharkiv Regional State Administration building in Freedom Square on March 1
He also appeared to reference the president’s June 2021 comments in which Biden claimed the Pentagon told him in 2009 that climate change is ‘the greatest threat facing America,’ which he still believed.
‘Instead of showing strength and toughness, they declared the Global Warming Hoax as the #1 threat to global security, killed American Energy Independence, and then made Europe, the U.S., and the rest of the World dependent on Russian oil,’ Trump said.
‘They laid down the welcome mat and gave Russia the opening, now Putin may be getting everything he wanted, with Ukraine and the rest of the World suffering the consequences.
‘It’s terrible, but this is what you get with Biden, the Democrats, and RINO warmongers!’
‘RINO’ refers to Republican In Name Only, a nickname Trump frequently invokes for his right-wing critics.
The former president stirred outrage across the political spectrum late last week when he praised Russia’s authoritarian leader’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine as ‘genius’ and said his plan of designating two separatist breakaway areas as ‘independent’ was ‘pretty savvy.’
‘Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?”‘ Trump said on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.
Trump claims he deterred Putin from invading a neighboring country when he was president but his critics say he emboldened the Russian leader to further meddle in global affairs
He had gone on to parrot the Kremlin’s lie that Putin was sending ‘peacekeepers’ in.
‘That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right,’ Trump said. ‘Here’s a guy who’s very savvy … I know him very well. Very, very well.’
During his big speech headlining CPAC on Saturday evening, Trump walked his comments on Ukraine back but continued to speak glowingly of Putin. He instead blamed the Biden administration for Russian forces’ invasion.
‘The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling. It’s an outrage, and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur,’ Trump told his audience in Florida last night.
However, he also said: ‘Yesterday reporters asked me if I thought President Putin is smart. I said of course he’s smart. The problem isn’t Putin is smart — which of course he is smart — it’s that our leaders are dumb.’
Allies of the former president point out that Russia invaded the nation of Georgia in 2008 and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, both when Barack Obama was president. They claim the fact that Putin ceased his land grabs for four years under Trump and resumed now is a testament to the former president’s foreign policy.
However, others argue Trump’s warm embrace of the Russian autocrat while in office and anti-NATO posturing only served to embolden him.
Utah GOP Senator Mitt Romney, who ran for president against Obama in 2012, took aim at both the Democrat and Republican leaders’ policies as the crisis in Eastern Europe unfolded.
‘Putin’s impunity predictably follows our tepid response to his previous horrors in Georgia and Crimea, our naive efforts at a one-sided “reset,” and the shortsightedness of America First,’ Romney said in a statement on Thursday.
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was once a supporter of Trump’s, said on Monday that anyone who would make such a comment has no ‘understanding of the world.’
Since Putin personally gave the order for his troops to invade Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday morning, the US has issued a series of sanctions in conjunction with western allies to punish Moscow and make it more difficult to continue its invasion.
Biden is expected to close US airspace to Russian planes as the West’s latest punitive measure against Putin’s attack
Targeted sanctions have largely avoided the energy sector so far, so as to minimize the economic blockades’ impact on the global community.
In addition to punishing Russia’s core financial institutions, sanctions also target top Kremlin officials including Putin himself.
Biden is expected to take it a step further and join the European Union and Canada in restricting their sovereign airspace to Russian planes, Reuters reported.
He’s also set to condemn Putin‘s ‘premeditated and unprovoked’ war in his State of the Union address, according to excerpts provided by the White House.
‘Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson – when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And, the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising,’ the president will say.
‘That’s why the NATO Alliance was created to secure peace and stability in Europe after World War 2. The United States is a member along with 29 other nations. It matters. American diplomacy matters.
‘Putin’s war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And, he thought he could divide us here at home. Putin was wrong. We were ready.’
