Former President Donald Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a friendly but acrimonious relationship, and warned the former KGB agent against invading Ukraine.
Trump told “Hannity” he doesn’t like to brag about things like that, but insisted that Putin understood not to invade another sovereign country while he was US president.
“Putin would never go to Ukraine. I used to talk to him about it – I said ‘better not’. And he wouldn’t – we had a very friendly conversation about it: I said, ‘Hey, Vladimir’, you can’t go into Ukraine” .
As Putin executed his invasion after President Biden took office, “Hannity” host Sean Hannity asked Trump why he says with “such conviction” that the Russian strongman would back down if re-elected.
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“He knew he wasn’t messing with me,” Trump said, “I don’t mean that.”
“Do you know why? Because you’d say – Oh – I don’t like people who say ‘oh, they’re afraid of me’ like a little bird. I don’t want to say it, but were they afraid of me? I suspect it. He did.”
He recounted how Trump presented then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a white flag, and said in previous interviews that the CDU leader didn’t understand at first.
“You never heard about Nord Stream II until I came. (It’s) the biggest pipeline in the world – they’re building it to Germany,” he said, adding that he had sent the flag to Merkel as his symbol. surrender” to the Russians on energy security.
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“I said, ‘Angela, are you crazy?'” she said. “He also let millions of people into our country, which, you know, may have screwed up his country forever.”
Trump added that the Berlin delegation had laughed at a United Nations speech in which he warned about Russia’s economic deals with European nations.
“I thought it was so funny when I said, ‘Germany shouldn’t make a deal with Russia on Nord Stream II – a pipeline that supplies their energy’… They’re not laughing anymore.”
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Trump also said the Chinese spy balloon incident would not have happened under Biden’s watch; the airship was floating from Alaska to Canada, entered the Lower 48 in the Mountain West and continued unimpeded to the Carolina coast. eventually they were thrown over the ocean.
Hannity pointed out that the public might not even know about the airship unless they had a sharp eye in Montana with a camera.
“I wouldn’t do anything with the balloon because it wouldn’t happen under me,” he said.
“They wouldn’t. I’m telling you, just like Putin would never go to Ukraine,” Trump said.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and breaking news, and has reported on Fox News Digital’s annual CPAC conference.
Charles is a native of Pennsylvania and graduated from Temple University with a BA in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.