Trump: "This is not the same as the Putin I was dealing with... what would have changed if I had remained in power!"
Former US President Donald Trump's attitudes toward the Russian military operation in Ukraine have changed, after he initially praised it and called it a "Holocaust." However, he did not criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The conservative American journalist in "Fox News", Sean Hannity, tried several times to persuade Trump to condemn Putin, without success, and even American media such as (rollingstone) described the matter as "begging."
Hannity told Trump: "You got so criticized when you called Vladimir Putin very smart... I think you realize he's evil, don't you?"
Trump shrugged off the question, saying only that when he called Putin smart it was about how he sent tanks into the separatist regions he supports in eastern Ukraine.
"It's not like the Putin I've been dealing with," he added.
And the former US president continued, according to "Sky News Arabia": "But I will tell you that it would not have changed if I remained the one dealing with him."
"It has provided (Ukraine) with anti-tank missiles, called Javelin, and without them there would be nothing of what is happening now (the slowdown of the Russian offensive). They are hitting the tanks one by one," he added.
But what actually happened is that Trump temporarily stopped supplying Ukraine with quantities of these missiles, despite their approval by the US Congress, in an attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to force him to reveal things that might harm his rival at the time, Joe Biden in the US presidential race.
The American media did not stop trying to pressure Trump to condemn Putin, considering that Trump's repeated praises of the Russian president are not real. Hannity said: "The praises came only from the principle of keeping friends close and bringing enemies closer. Does this explain how you see Putin?"
He also asked, "Did you view Vladimir Putin and people like (Chinese) President Xi, Kim Jong Un (North Korean leader) and the rulers of the Iranian mullahs' regime as enemies that you should stay close to?"
Trump replied, "I got along with these people," and repeated the answer, "I got along well with them, (but) that doesn't mean they are good people."
He added, "It only means the fact that I understood them and maybe they understood me. Maybe they understood me better, which is good."
But Hannity asked him again if he "thought they were capable of doing evil things".
Trump responded by blaming current President Joe Biden, and said, "It's all because they did not respect our leader."
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