Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a Russian TV interview on Sunday that Moscow would prefer seeing Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House next year because she is more “predictable” than her opponent Donald Trump.
Peskov’s comments were delivered with a dash of sarcasm, as the Russian government insists it has no preferences in foreign elections and never interferes with them.
Peskov therefore treated the question about who the Kremlin favors in the 2024 U.S. presidential election as laughable. His interviewer, regime-friendly TV personality Pavel Zarubin, also made a point of laughing out loud when he asked the question.
“We have no candidate. But, of course, the Democrats are more predictable. And what Putin said about Biden’s predictability applies to almost all Democrats, including Ms. Harris,” Peskov told Zarubin.
Peskov was alluding to Russian President Vladimir Putin saying in a February interview that he preferred now-defunct President Joe Biden to Trump, because he saw Biden as “a more experienced, predictable person, a politician of the old school.”
“But we will work with any U.S. president who the American people have confidence in,” Putin added, with an unmistakable smirk.
On other occasions, Putin expressed concerns about Biden’s deteriorating mental health, and also denounced the Democrat Party for using the U.S. court system to wage political warfare against Trump.
On all of these occasions, Putin was careful to insist that Russia has no preference in the outcome of the 2024 election and was equally prepared to deal with any U.S. president.
In his Russian TV interview on Sunday, Peskov complained that the United States has “trampled” on Russia’s interests with heavy-handed sanctions over the Ukraine war, and he saw “no prospects” for relations to improve with either a Harris or Trump administration next year.
Peskov also mocked Trump for claiming he could negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war if he wins the election, even before he is formally inaugurated.
“I know both heads of the countries. I know President Putin very well. I want to see the death stopping. There’s death and there’s destruction. They are destroying the whole fabric of a certain part of the world. I want to get it negotiated, and get it done,” Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview in early August.
During a CNN town hall meeting in May 2023, Trump said he could negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours of being elected.
Peskov, like other Russian politicians over the past year, was fixated on the “24 hours” boast.
“I don’t think there is a magic wand. Nothing can be done within 24 hours,” Peskov said on Sunday.
Peskov said the situation in Ukraine would only change dramatically if the next U.S. president promises in his, or her, inauguration speech, to stop “all military aid programs” for Ukraine and “calls on the parties to sit down at the negotiating table.”
“You can imagine it hypothetically, but this is from the realm of fantasy,” he said.
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