The White House said Tuesday that it isn’t going to take advice from former President Donald Trump regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Psaki told reporters at Tuesday’s press briefing that President Joe Biden had “a bit of a different approach” to the conflict than his predecessor.
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“As a matter of policy, we try not to take advice from anyone who praises President Putin and his military strategy,” Psaki said.
A reporter asked Psaki about Trump’s description of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic moves as “genius” and “smart.”
The top Biden spokeswoman then went on to hit Trump as someone who “expressed openness to lifting sanctions about the seizing of territory in Crimea” and “told leaders at the G-7 that Crimea is a part of Russia.”
Asked whether Trump’s comments might make the Russia-Ukraine dispute a partisan issue, Psaki replied, “I think that is up to members of the Republican Party to make the decision and make the determination.” She described “decades of history,” including Biden’s run as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “of standing up to the efforts of any country to seize the territory of another country” on a bipartisan basis.
The questions came as the parties debated whether Trump or Biden was tougher on Russia. Democrats spent Trump’s term arguing that he was guilty of collusion with Russia to swing the 2016 presidential election, though special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence that this was the case, and special counsel John Durham has handed out indictments in his inquiry of the Trump-Russia investigation’s origins.
Republicans shot back that Ukraine was invaded under Biden and former President Barack Obama — unlike Trump, who gave the country lethal military aid, among other policies not to Putin’s liking.
“By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable,” Trump said in an interview. “This would never have happened. But here’s [Putin] that says, you know, ‘I’m going to declare a big portion of Ukraine independent.’ He used the word ‘independent,’ ‘and we’re going to go out, and we’re going to go in, and we’re going to help keep peace.’ You’ve got to say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.”
“I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump administration what he is doing now — no way!” Trump said in a statement earlier Tuesday. “Russia has become very very rich during the Biden administration, with oil prices doubling and soon to be tripling and quadrupling.”
But it was Trump’s commentary on Putin’s latest incursion of Ukraine that raised the questions that came up at the White House.
“I said, ‘How smart is that?’ He’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper,” the former president told Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. “That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep peace, all right.”
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Psaki said these sentiments illustrate why Biden has been more successful at rallying the Western world against Putin than Trump. The Republican National Committee shot back, “Correct! That is why Putin has invaded Ukraine twice on Biden’s watch and never on Trump’s.”
