Former US president Donald Trump tells the CPAC Republican conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “smart.”
“Yesterday reporters asked me if I thought President Putin was smart I said, ‘Of course he’s smart,'” Trump says.
“Yes, he’s smart. The NATO nations and indeed the world, as he looks over what’s happening strategically with no repercussions or threats whatsoever, they’re not so smart, they’re looking the opposite of smart,” Trump says.
He mocks Western sanctions as a “weak statement.”
“Putin is saying, ‘Oh, they’re going to sanction me. They sanctioned me for the last 25 years. You mean I can take over a whole country and they’re going to sanction me? You mean they’re not going to blow us to pieces?’”
“The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he’s smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb, dumb, so dumb,” Trump says to applause.
He calls the invasion of Ukraine “an assault on humanity.”
“Putin is playing Biden like a drum, and it’s not a pretty thing,” Trump says.
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From the Liveblog of
Saturday, February 26, 2022
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