Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday, during a town hall on Fox News, that he would tell Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war between their countries.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, launching a massive attack across the country.
“I know Zelenskyy very well because he was very honorable with the fake phone call impeachment hoax number one. They said I made a phone call to him, and I was threatening,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I was actually very nice, congratulating him, but when they asked, they said, ‘were you threatened?’ He didn’t even know what they were talking about.”
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“He is very honorable. He could’ve done grandstanding and said he felt threatened. He didn’t do that,” Trump continued. “As you know, I get along very well with Putin. I would tell Putin, you’ve got to settle. I would tell Zelenskyy, you’ve got to settle. I would get a settlement in 24 hours.”
The United States has sent over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine and announced in January they would send 31 M1 Abrams main battle tanks after a December announcement that a battery of MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles would be provided.
Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley ripped former President Donald Trump on July 11 for saying he could end the Ukraine War in a day.
“He knows that he can’t end it in a day. Everybody else knows he can’t end the war in a day,” Haley told Fox News host Neil Cavuto.
Trump has repeatedly called for fighting between Ukraine and Russia to cease and said he could end the war in 24 hours.
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Trump released a statement on July 11 criticizing President Joe Biden for sending M864 155-millimeter artillery shells, known as Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) but commonly called cluster munitions, which dispense smaller explosive weapons over an area to attack personnel and vehicles.
“Joe Biden should not be dragging us further toward World War III by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine—he should be trying to END the war and stop the horrific death and destruction being caused by an incompetent administration,” Trump said in the statement that he posted on Truth Social.
“If, as Biden inadvertently admitted, the reason for sending cluster bombs now is that the United States is ‘running out of ammunition’ (a great breach of classified information), that only further emphasizes the urgency of immediately deescalating this bloody, dangerous, and out of control conflict,” Trump said. “It certainly means we should not be sending Ukraine our last stockpiles at a time when our own arsenals, according to Crooked Joe Biden, are so perilously diminished.”
Cluster munitions are controversial due to the risk posed by “dud” submunitions that could cause harm to civilians long after a conflict is over and were last manufactured in the 1990s, The Washington Post reported.
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“There could be no more vivid proof that Joe Biden’s policy of endless war in Ukraine has tremendously weakened the United States than the humiliating admission that the USA is now out of ammo, something our enemies are undoubtedly salivating over,” Trump said. “This ‘admitted’ weakness is an invitation to enemies all over the world. Joe Biden is needlessly and dangerously leading us into World War III, which would be a nightmare beyond imagination—obliteration!”
In early February 2022, the Biden administration appeared to indicate it opposed usage of the weapons.
“It is — it would be. I don’t have any confirmation of that,” Psaki said in a Feb. 28, 2022 press briefing after a reporter asked about alleged use of cluster munitions by Russia in the early stages of the war in Ukraine. “We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime.”
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