So what is Trump’s position on the threat to Ukraine?
President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on Sept. 25, 2019, during the U.N. General Assembly. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Former president Donald Trump would like very much for people to view him as President Biden’s inevitable opponent in 2024. The stronger that perception, the less likely it is that some usurper such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will start building power to run against him. And the stronger that perception, the more attention Trump himself will draw between now and then.
While he no longer has the same platform on social media that he once did (Twitter and Facebook took a dim view of his efforts to overthrow Biden’s election), he still releases frequent messages on the website of his political action committee. He still conducts interviews (albeit almost exclusively with sycophantic right-wing outlets), and he still holds rallies. Part of his attempts to reinforce his position as head of the party is acting like he is the head of the party, a bit of theater he enjoys.
In the moment, this raises an interesting question: What’s Trump’s position on the increased aggression that Russia is demonstrating toward Ukraine? And, more importantly, if Russia were to invade, how would Trump react?
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No statements centered on Ukraine have been published on his PAC’s website. Or, rather, none about the current tension; there are a number of statements in which Trump fumes about Democrats, mentioning Ukraine as a way of complaining that he was unfairly impeached for his efforts to get that country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to aid Trump’s reelection bid.
At his rally in Arizona over the weekend, Trump mentioned the issue only cursorily — and solely to attack Biden.
“Biden has utterly humiliated our nation on the world stage,” Trump said. Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not only threatening Ukraine,” he continued — “I don’t know if you’ve been reading about this, but now he’s threatening to go into Cuba and Venezuela. That’s a lack of respect, and we never had that problem, did we? There was no problem with Putin and Ukraine” when he was president, Trump insisted.
That, of course, offers its own realm of exploration. Trump’s relationship with Putin was not only obviously warm, but Trump tried to frame his affection for the authoritarian leader as a benefit. That he would be friends with Putin was positioned as somehow reflecting a positive development for the United States. After all, he said, Putin wasn’t his enemy.
His comments at the Arizona rally carried an implied criticism — Putin is saying he will do this bad thing because he’s not scared of Biden — but Trump doesn’t actually say it’s bad. He doesn’t say what Biden should do,…
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