Donald Trump.Photo: Steven Ferdman/WireImage
Donald Trumpthis week again appeared on right-wing media for a meandering interview — filled with unfounded claims and bold statements — in which he again called on U.S. adversaryVladimir Putinto provide damaging information about one of his biggest rivals: this time,the Bidens.
It was a repeat of the same widely denounced gambit thatled to Trump’s impeachmentin 2019.
Speaking to theJust the Newstelevision showin an interview published Tuesday, the 75-year-old former president offered up more attacks onJoe Biden’s younger son,Hunter Biden, alleging without evidence that Hunter had reaped millions of dollars (via a company he co-founded) from a Russian oligarch named Yelena Baturina.
Russian President Putin, Trump insisted, could shed further light on the claim, which fact-checkershave debunked.
“She gave him $3.5 million so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it,” Trump said in the interview, filmed at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. “I think we should know that answer.”
He continued elsewhere in the interview: “I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer. I’m sure he knows.”
The company that received the funds has a similar name to a firm Hunter did co-found, but they do not appear to be the same entity and no link between them has been established.
While Senate Republicans have also advanced suspicions about the $3.5 million payment in 2014, Hunter himself and his attorneyshave said that he has no role in the companyin question.
Trump’s latest remarks are part of an infamous pattern.
Trump insisted he did nothing wrong and the Republican-led Senate acquitted him.
Donald Trump (left) and Vladimir Putin.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty
Speaking withJust the Newsthis week, Trump had other topics on his mind.
Ever-boastful, he claimed that he was “the best thing that ever happened to NATO,” an intergovernmental military alliance that Trump has previously referred to as “obsolete.”
“I’m the best thing that ever happened to NATO, because I made them pay. So NATO has plenty of money now,” Trump said, adding: “And then they say, ‘He’s so nice to Russia.’ I’m the one that put the biggest sanctions on Russia.”
During his term in office, Trump kept in place many of the sanctions toward Russia that had begun under his predecessor, PresidentBarack Obama, and enactednew sanctionson five Russians and Chechens over human rights abuses.
But he also spoke in glowing terms about Putin, calling him a “genius” even after his recent invasion of Ukraine. Biden, meanwhile,has called Putin"a war criminal."
Trump also weighed in Tuesday regarding rising inflation and supply-chain issues.
“You go to a store, they don’t have bread. We’re like a third-world country. They don’t have things,” he said. “You go to buy something at Tiffany, You go to buy something at a hardware store. High, low — they don’t have product.”
source: people.com
