During an interview that aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Hannity,” former President Donald Trump warned of the dangers of a second term for President Joe Biden.
Among those dangers was an increased chance of a global conflict, which he deemed World War III.
Partial transcript as follows:
TRUMP: We’re at the most dangerous point in the history of our country because of the power of weaponry, nuclear weapons in particular. Weapons that are so powerful that — and I’ve seen the effects.
And I had an uncle, a great professor at MIT for many years, we used to talk about nuclear a lot. He understood nuclear very well. And even then, that was many years ago.
My father’s brother. Dr. John Trump, and I think it was a longest-serving Professor in the history of MIT, I think 41 years — very smart. We used to talk about nuclear and he used to talk about the power of nuclear.
And I’d say, Uncle John, you’re done. We’re — a briefcase the size of a regular briefcase would — would do damage that I don’t even want to discuss. And we’re a long way from that in terms of the advancement of that technology. And it’s very bad, very scary.
And I will tell you, we have a chance of going into World War III because of our leader. So I don’t want to get into what state he’s in, you know. It’s — it’s — in one way, it’s not something for me to talk about.
I can tell you this. President Xi of China, Putin, Kim Jong-un, all of these leaders are at the top of their game mentally. They’re at the top of their game.
And they’re dealing with somebody that’s not at the top of their game — his game. And honestly, he never was. He was never the brightest bulb. And everybody understands that. Everybody knows that.
You look at his foreign policy over the years. It was always wrong. You look at all of the things, you look at his crime bill in the 1990s. How — how horrible that was to certain groups of people. He was never great at what he did. He did it because he was hale and hearty and well met.
And I have a real problem. I love this country. I don’t want to see this country get into a nuclear war and be so badly damaged, what we say won’t matter. This won’t matter, this place won’t matter, nothing will matter because practically nothing’s going to be here anymore.
The level of power — the level of power with the weapons and weaponry — that’s real weaponry. That’s worse than the weaponry that we were talking about a little while ago. This is the ultimate — this is obliteration, maybe world obliteration. And we have a man that is not capable of even discussing it.
He talked the other night about — that nuclear doesn’t matter so much. What matters is, think of this, global warming. The only global warming that matters to me is nuclear global warming because that’s the real deal.
He said, it’s an existential threat. He loves the words existential threat. That global warming is an existential threat. And he doesn’t know why. What is it? It’s weather.
And I’m all for that. You know what? I’m in a certain way, in a very powerful way, I’m an environmentalist. I’m — I want clean air. I want clean water.
But this is not the existential threat. Tomorrow, we could have a war that will be so devastating that you can never recover from it, nobody can. The whole world won’t be able to recover from it. And he’s talking about something, in 400 years from now, the — the oceans will rise by an eighth of an inch.
Look, we have a man that shouldn’t be doing this job. He’s not qualified. He’s not mentally sharp enough, and I don’t believe he was 20 years ago either. You know, they can show me clips. Take a look at the clips of he — how he did 20 years ago.
His level of hatred for me is incredible. But all I’m trying to do is lay out the facts, lay out the facts. We have to have somebody that’s sharp and strong. And Viktor Orban, who’s a very strong kind of a guy, I guess — they call him a strongman. Oh, Trump likes — I don’t like strongmen or hate strongmen.
He’s leading a country. He’s a strong leader. He’s the Prime Minister of Hungary. He said the only way we’re going to solve the problems of the world, you got to bring Trump back.
China was afraid of him. Russia was afraid of him.
Look, I ended the Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2. Before I came in — even you, nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2. I said, they’re building Nord Stream 2. Everyone said, what is that?
It’s the biggest pipeline in the world, going to Germany. So we’re protecting Germany and Germany’s paying billions of dollars a month to Russia for energy.
And I also said it’s bad for Germany because if they ever do end up with a war, which they have many times, they’ll turn off the juice and Germany doesn’t have a chance. That’s when I gave Angela Merkel a white flag. Do you remember? I sent over a white flag at a table. She said, what is it?
That’s the flag of surrender.
So we need a president that’s sharp and that’s respected. And we’re closer to World War III.
Now, you take a look at what’s happened in the last few days. Putin is now talking about nuclear weapons for the first time, right? I mean, he’s talking about him all the time because Ukraine is now talking about hitting Russia. And Biden doesn’t know what the hell to say. But all of these things, they’re going to end up leading to World War III.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I’ll get the Ukrainian situation settled and I’ll get it settled fast. It would have never happened.
The other thing that would have never happened is the Octoberth attack of Israel, would have never happened.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
