EXCLUSIVE — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview that he is “surprised” Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine and further cracked down on freedom inside Russia, explaining that he believed the strongman’s threats were a negotiating tactic.
“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday evening during a wide-ranging telephone interview from Mar-a-Lago, his private social club and political headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.”
“I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,” Trump added. “And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”
Russia initiated an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 after months of saber-rattling by Putin. The war sparked intense backlash in the West and unified NATO countries. The United States and European nations responded with severe diplomatic and economic sanctions while funneling military aid to Ukraine to help Kyiv resist Russian aggression. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to deliver a virtual address to a joint session of Congress.
President Joe Biden has called Putin a “tyrant.” Top Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s former White House national security adviser, harshly denounced the Russian president and declared no quarter in the Republican Party for Putin sympathizers. Their comments came after Trump initially declined to criticize Putin personally, as was his habit as president, preferring instead to compliment him for his skills as a geopolitical strategist and negotiator.
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Trump has been criticized for soft-pedaling his criticism of Putin, especially by Democrats. But the former president has been absorbing veiled shots from Republicans as well — among them supporters of his who could hardly be classified as “Never Trump.” In his interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump categorically rejected suggestions that he has a soft spot for the Russian strongman and seemed almost offended by the accusation.
“I’ve been very, very tough on Putin. I get a bad rap on that,” Trump said, reiterating his claim that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine had he been president for fear of how he would respond. “At the same time, I got along with him very well. But I got along with most [world leaders] very well.”
Trump came under fire during his tenure for appearing to tie U.S. support for Ukraine to his alleged efforts to dig up damaging information on Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign. The controversy led to the 45th president’s first impeachment. Trump has always denied those charges — and even many Republicans unhappy with the former president’s rhetoric regarding Putin have lauded his administration’s Russia policy.
Breaking with his predecessor, Barack Obama, Trump approved sending lethal military aid to Ukraine to help Kyiv fortify its defenses against Russia. On Tuesday, Trump focused on his opposition to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, running from Russia to Germany, that Putin could use to fund his war machine. Breaking with Trump, Biden approved the pipeline, a major priority of Germany’s, although Berlin has indefinitely delayed Nord Stream 2 since the invasion.
Trump also highlighted the strong-arming he engaged in to convince NATO countries to increase their defense budgets. The former president conceded that he essentially threatened to ignore the treaty’s Article 5 commitment that an attack on one is an attack on all. But Trump said he did that because otherwise, the countries who were not spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense, as NATO requires, never would have done so.
Meanwhile, the former president pointed to his administration’s effort to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons program. All told, Trump argued, this agenda was the opposite of what Putin wanted and proof positive that he is no Putin patsy.
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“When you think of it, who was tougher on Russia than me?” Trump asked.
“I got billions and billions of dollars” for NATO, he said. “Now, all that money is going against Russia, so I did that. I closed the pipeline. You know, the pipeline was closed, and Biden opened it. Plus, I did the biggest sanctions anybody’s ever done on Russia.”
“I’ve been very critical of Putin from the standpoint of the pipeline, from the standpoint of raising billions and billions of dollars in NATO to protect, primarily, Europe against Russia,” Trump said. “Nobody else did that.”
