Fourteen months after exiting the White House and with midterm elections around the corner, former President Donald Trump is gazing backward, focused on vindicating his leadership and proving he did not actually lose in 2020.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump said investigating voter fraud he claims occurred in the last election is more important to Republican primary voters than issues driving American politics ahead of the next election, now less than eight months away. And the former president argued that the challenges the United States faces at home and abroad would be practically nonexistent were he still in the White House — especially Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“That’s the biggest thing there is in politics, and most Republican politicians don’t know it — the 2020 election fraud. It’s the biggest thing in politics, and most politicians don’t know it,” Trump said Tuesday evening during a wide-ranging telephone interview from Mar-a-Lago, his private social club and political headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The country is doing terribly,” Trump added, referring to the porous Mexican border and the unfinished wall. But the “greatest embarrassment ever” for the U.S., the former president said, was the botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan that he asserts left the nation wallowing “at one of the lowest points it’s ever been.” Trump said he had planned to leave a residual combat force in Afghanistan, headquartered at Bagram Air Base, to deter terrorists and China.
The mishandled U.S. departure from Afghanistan, Trump continued, was primarily responsible for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. “It’s a big part of the reason why Putin decided to do what he did. He would have never done that if I were in office. He would have never done that,” the former president said.
‘I THOUGHT HE WAS NEGOTIATING’: TRUMP DIDN’T THINK PUTIN WOULD ORDER THE UKRAINE INVASION
Trump is considering a third run for the presidency in 2024 and would begin any Republican primary as the most formidable candidate in the field. He possesses universal name identification, boasts a political war chest that could top $200 million by year’s end, and enjoys enviable popularity with grassroots conservative voters far exceeding that of any of his would-be competitors. Plus, the former president can run on the experience of having done the job.
Yet, typically for Trump, he seemed to struggle to articulate exactly why being the president, again, after a four-year absence, appeals to him beyond personal pride — returning again and again, throughout the interview, to 2020 and his unsupported claims that the election was stolen. The former president said evidence is forthcoming.
During a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, the former commander in chief said, “We may have to run again.” The statement suggests conditions in the U.S., and maybe internationally, are compelling Trump to undertake such a momentous task. Asked to elaborate, Trump fell back, first, on an old favorite: the polls.
“I’m looking at polls where I’m way ahead. We had a 98% approval rating in one of them, in the Republican Party,” he said, before reciting the litany of his successor’s perceived failures.
And what about the biggest issue of the moment, Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine? Aside from Trump’s argument that it would not have happened on his watch, how does he propose the U.S. respond?
It is an issue he might have to grapple with — the repercussions, at least — if he runs for president in 2024 and wins a second term.
Trump volunteered that he was intrigued by the three European leaders — from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia — who traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to show support for his war-torn country. “Maybe they just shouldn’t leave,” Trump said.
“I assume that they’re going to have to stop shooting,” he added. “It’s a very interesting concept.” So should President Joe Biden follow their example? “No, I don’t want to recommend that because that’s a very dangerous situation. But it certainly is interesting that certain leaders are going there,” Trump explained. “But I don’t recommend that for President Biden. It’s a very big step.”
Pressed to provide a specific policy or strategy that is not reliant on his personality, the 45th president finally settled on U.S. energy independence as the primary tool he would use to punish Putin and deprive Russia of the resources to fund its war machine and threaten neighboring countries.
Trump said massive American energy exports would reduce the price of Russia’s oil and natural gas exports, which would amount to a major hit on Putin’s treasury.
This is certainly a viable and potentially crucial strategy to help Ukraine resist Russia and deter future aggression from Moscow.
Indeed, most Republicans in Washington say adopting this approach is vitally important, and they are urging Biden to include it in the U.S. arsenal of countermeasures against Putin that has included severe diplomatic and economic sanctions, billions of dollars in lethal aid and other assistance to Ukraine, and bolstering the defenses of NATO countries.
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“We should immediately make ourselves energy independent, drive the price of oil way down — down to a very, very low point,” Trump said. “We should tell China, ‘You can’t buy oil from certain countries that you’re buying oil from until such time as things are worked out.’ And you will get everything done very quickly. There’s a lot of money involved in wars, and when you don’t have the money, the wars stop very quickly.”
“The worse Putin behaved, the price kept going up for the oil,” the former president added. “So you can put sanctions on, you can do a lot of other things, but he’ll do it in a different form, whether it’s through gold or through other countries — or, frankly, through dealing with China instead of the more traditional way. I would be bringing the price of oil way down, and when that happens, you’ll see lots of other good things start to happen.”
