Former President Donald Trump said that he wanted to end the was between Russia and Ukraine as President-elect — even before he takes office — though he did not say how he intended to do so, given laws barring private diplomacy.
Trump made the comment during an interview on X (formerly Twitter) “Spaces” with cryptocurrency enthusiast Farokh Sarmad — the first interview the former president has granted since escaping a second assassination attempt the day before at his Florida golf club.
Democrats smeared Trump as a Russian puppet, yet Russian President Vladimir Putin did not invade any countries while Trump was president. Upon taking office, President Joe Biden adopted a posture of appeasement, canceling Trump’s sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and holding a summit with Putin in Geneva before ever meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia invaded Ukraine, which held out — against the expectations of the Biden administration — but then Biden, who came to office declaring “diplomacy is back,” pushed for victory, which has been elusive after nearly three years of war. Biden has yet to call any kind of joint peace conference.
Trump’s comments appear at 27:18 below:
I want to get Russia to settle up with Ukraine and stop this — millions of people being killed, far greater than the number you read about. But I want to get that done before I even take office, I want to get that done as president-elect, because it has to be solved — too many people dying, too many cities are just in rubble right now, you look at the cultures just being destroyed. We’ve got to get that done, and I’ll get it done. There wouldn’t have been an October 7th, there wouldn’t have been Russia attacking Ukraine, there wouldn’t be inflation, all this inflation which has hurt people so badly. You wouldn’t have had that horrible type of withdrawal — we were getting out of Afghanistan, but with dignity and strength — that was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. And frankly Russia would have never gone into Ukraine if it weren’t for that. They looked at that and they said, “This country is no longer run by Trump. This country is run by stupid people.”
Trump did not explain how he would forge peace as a private citizen. The Logan Act prevents private citizens from conducting formal diplomacy on behalf of the U.S.; it was used by the Department of Justice as a pretext to eavesdrop on then-incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn during the presidential transition of 2016-2017.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
