Trump says Ukraine’s Zelensky should ‘never have let that war start’
Former president Donald Trump blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for allowing the war in Ukraine to start, even though Russia was the aggressor, during an interview with a podcaster that was published Thursday.
Trump called Zelenskyy “one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever seen” and marveled at how much aid Ukraine has received from the United States.
“Who else got that kind of money in history?” Trump said in the interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David. “There’s never been. And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start. That war’s a loser.”
Moments later, Trump criticized President Joe Biden, as he has often done, for his handling of the conflict, claiming he “instigated that war.”
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Biden has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine. This year, Congress approved $61 billion in aid to the country as part of a broader spending package, on top of tens of billions approved earlier in the war.
Trump met with the Ukrainian president in late September at Trump Tower, their first meeting since 2019. Before the meeting began, Trump, standing next to Zelenskyy, said that it was an “honor” to meet with him and that they had a “very good relationship.” He then added that he also has a “very good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has reportedly maintained a personal relationship with Putin since leaving the White House, and this week said, “Russia has never had a president that they respect so much.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he were still president and blamed Biden for the ongoing war during the podcast Thursday.
“This should have been settled before it started,” Trump said. “It would have been so easy if we had a president with half a brain, it would have been easy to settle.”
The podcast interview that aired Thursday is not the first time Trump has appeared to suggest Zelensky is at fault for the ongoing war. During a campaign event in Mint Hill, N.C., for example, Trump said, “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal.”
During the interview, Trump also brought up Harris’s racial identity as he talked about Black voters.
“Black men really like me, and I think Black women really do too,” he said. “But they have a woman who is Black, though you would say she’s Indian, but she is Black. But really a lot of people didn’t know, which is true.”
Trump has questioned Harris’s racial identity in the past, falsely claiming in July that she “happened to turn Black” a few years ago.