AP Photo/Evan Vucci
- Trump made repeated false and misleading claims about the Ukraine war during a Fox News interview.
- Trump praised Putin as "very smart" amid the stalemated and brutal fight the Russian leader ordered.
- Trump's grasp of the war's appeared spotty and an echo of Russia's propaganda.
Former President Donald Trump, the current frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, used a Fox News interview on Tuesday to repeatedly make false and misleading claims about the war in Ukraine while offering high praise for the Russian leader and accused war criminal who launched it.
Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin "loved" Ukraine, while acknowledging that the unprovoked war Putin ordered has devastated the former Soviet republic. "He considers it to be a part of Russia," Trump said of Putin's view on Ukraine, which was among the few accurate remarks the former president made on the subject during the interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson — who also has routinely echoed the Kremlin's propaganda on the war.
"Ukraine is being obliterated," Trump said at another point in the interview, while falsely suggesting that Ukrainian forces are not performing "better than anticipated." Russia has seized large swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine since launching their invasion in February 2022, and the areas that have seen the heaviest fighting are devastated — in large part because of Russia's scorched earth tactics. But Russia's forces have been embarrassed before the world by the war, and top military experts have said that Moscow has already suffered what amounts to a strategic defeat — underscoring that it will take years for the Russian military to be rebuilt.
Indeed, Ukraine's stiff resistance has shocked Putin's advisors and Western intelligence services, who had projected that Kyiv would fall in a matter of days. The brutal fight in Ukraine has morphed into a grinding war of attrition, but Russia refuses to give up on its major goals even as it finds itself with a shrinking economy and fewer trading partners.
Trump's high praise for an American adversary and parroting of the Kremlin's talking points appears to be part of his America First pitch to voters worried about the costs and risks of extensive US support, an effort his potential rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has also questioned. It also may be an effort to undermine President Joe Biden's successful backing of underdog Ukraine, an achievement strongly supported by many Republican lawmakers.
Trump has been calling US aid to other countries into question for years. His first impeachment was also linked, in part, to his decision to freeze security assistance to Kyiv as he simultaneously pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into then-Democratic presidential candidate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, over bogus allegations of corruption.
Trump, whose amicable stance toward Russia and its authoritarian leader has long been criticized, may see a political upside to continuing to question assistance to Ukraine as he vies for the presidency once again despite his two impeachments and a recent criminal indictment in New York. Polling has shown that Republican voters are less likely than Democratic voters to support continued assistance to Ukraine.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 12, 2023
At one point in the interview, Trump also appeared to suggest — without evidence — that the US was responsible for explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, the kind of attack line often heard in Russian state-run media.
"I don't want to get our country in trouble," Trump said when asked about the Nord Stream sabotage.
To be sure, investigations into the pipeline explosions are ongoing and inconclusive.
—Acyn (@Acyn) April 12, 2023
The former president also falsely said that the Biden administration has "taken the military that I've rebuilt, and they've given it all to Ukraine."
The extent to which the US military was "rebuilt" under Trump, who continued the war in Afghanistan throughout his presidency, is open to debate. Regardless, Trump's statement is misleading on a few levels: US spending on the military has increased under the Biden administration, which has simultaneously refused to fulfill many of Ukraine's requests for advanced weapons.
The US has provided Ukraine with billions in security assistance, including vital lethal aid, since Russia invaded. But the Biden administration has pushed against calls for it to provide Kyiv with long-range weapons and has so far ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets. Under Biden, the US has given over $35 billion in security aid to Ukraine. For perspective, the US defense budget for this fiscal year is $858 billion.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 12, 2023
At times, Trump was unintelligible during the interview with Carlson as he jumped from one topic to another. But the former president was quite clear when it came to praising of US adversaries, as he lauded Putin as "very smart," North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as "smart," and Chinese leader Xi Jinping as "brilliant." It was not the first time Trump has expressed admiration for some of the most repressive leaders in the world. Trump, for example, previously described Putin's justification for invading Ukraine as "genius."
Meanwhile, Carlson, who's privately said he hates Trump "passionately," described the former president as "moderate, sensible, and wise" in comments to his audience.