President Donald Trump has slammed Joe Biden’s handling of the Ukraine crisis, warning that a Russian invasion would not have happened during his administration.
Trump appeared on Fox News to talk to Laura Ingraham about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“This is something that shouldn’t have happened,” and “it is very sad for the world,” Trump said.
This would not have happened during my administration,” the 45th president asserted.
“In fact, some people were saying, why didn’t this take place over the past four years during my administration?
“And it didn’t for a very good reason.
“I’ll explain that to you someday.
“But it wouldn’t have taken place, and it wouldn’t have taken place right now.
“It’s a very sad thing for the world, the country, and it is certainly sad for a lot of people that are going to be needlessly killed.
“I do know him, and I do know him very well. We’ve had many, many times together.
“I got along with him fantastically despite the fact that I shut down Nord Stream 2.
“Nobody would have heard of Nord Stream 2 if it weren’t for me.
“I’m the one that shut it down, and I’m the one that told Angela [Merkel] you’re doing a terrible thing by doing this, and they were going to get 75%, not 30% — 75% of their energy from Nord Stream 2. It was ridiculous.”
Mike Pompeo wrote in Fox News:
This invasion was by no means inevitable.
We in the Trump administration knew that it was Putin’s aim to establish Russian dominance and influence over all the old Soviet bloc countries, including in Ukraine.
We were able to keep an invasion like this one from occurring by establishing a model of deterrence not just with respect to Russia, but with anyone who threatened to harm or undermine our interests.
We kept the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from being completed, we withheld talks on a new START treaty, and we worked with our partners in NATO to increase defense spending and present a greater potential response to any act of Russian aggression.
We knew what Putin wanted to accomplish if given the chance, and we took the steps necessary to ensure he didn’t get that chance.
Make no mistake, Putin is about the business of trying to bring back the Soviet Union.
We must not allow that to happen.
It is not Vladimir Putin who has changed; it’s American leadership that’s changed.
The Biden administration has been threatening to execute what Vice President Kamala Harris called “some of the greatest sanctions, if not the strongest, that we’ve ever issued.”
But Putin has shown from day one that he is largely unconcerned with Western sanctions. As Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said in response, “We don’t need your sanctions … after we will have no borders and after we will have no economy or part of our country will be occupied. Why would we need those sanctions then?”
America has been weak and unclear with our adversaries when the world needed to be at its strongest and most clear.
Our adversaries have noted the Biden administration’s failure to act with resolve in Afghanistan, in the face of Chinese aggression, and now in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.
