Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday at a CNN town hall-style event in New Hampshire that the European Union needs to start paying “a lot more money” to subsidize the war in Ukraine, which he vowed to have “settled in one day” if elected.
A student from Saint Anselm’s College asked the 45th president if he supports the Biden administration’s posture to continue sending military equipment to Ukraine.
Trump responded:
Here’s the thing — have to say it to start off, no longer matters — if I were president, this would have never happened, and even the Democrats admit that. Putin knew it would have never happened, and his pipeline would have never happened. A lot of things would never have happened … and all those dead people, both Russian and Ukrainian, they wouldn’t be dead today. And all those cities that are blown up and disintegrated right to the ground, that wouldn’t have happened.
Now, here’s the problem, we’ve given so far $171 billion. They’ve given — they meaning [the] European Union, which is approximately the same size altogether as our economy — they’ve given about $20 [billion]. So we’re at $170 and they’re at $20, you don’t have to know too much about history … or geography to realize they’re a little bit more affected than we are … so they’ve got to put up a lot more money because they’re taking advantage of us just like every other country did.
When CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump, asking if he would continue the Biden administration’s practice of supporting Ukraine with money and weapons if elected, Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladamir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky and “have that war settled in one day — 24 hours.”
Collins went on to ask Trump who he wanted to win the war, prompting him to say, “I don’t think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled, so we stop killing all these people.”
“I want everyone to stop dying. They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying,” he added. “And I’ll have that done … in 24 hours, I’ll have it done. You need the power of the presidency to do it.”
When Collins asked if he thinks Putin is a war criminal, Trump said, “If you say he’s a war criminal, it’s going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to get this thing stopped because if he’s going to be a war criminal where people are going to grab him and execute him, he’s going fight a lot harder than under the other circumstance.”
“That’s something to be discussed at a later date. Right now, we want to get that war settled,” he emphasized.
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