Trump dodges opportunity call Putin ‘evil’ in Hannity interview

Even with lengthy preamble covering atrocities in Ukraine, former president sidesteps condemning Russian leader

Donald Trump faced a wave of condemnation for his comments in February calling Vladimir Putin “smart”, “genius”, and “savvy”, and while he has spoken out about the violence in Ukraine, he still refuses to say anything negative about the Russian leader.

Calling into Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Thursday night, the former president was even presented with the perfect opportunity to issue a harsh rebuke of Mr Putin’s unprovoked war on Ukraine and the mounting accusations of war crimes.

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The conversation, in true Trump-style, meandered freeform across a number of topics over the course of the whole interview, but Hannity stewarded the former president towards the subject of Ukraine.

After a preamble listing the atrocities that have been seen in the Eastern European country, Mr Trump reiterated a claim he has made several times — that this would never have happened if he were president – before talking about China and Taiwan.

The Fox News host steered him back towards Russia and Ukraine: “I’ve known you for over 25 years, when you got criticised for saying that Vladimir Putin is smart — we’ve had many conversations, and you have often quoted to me Sun Tzu, The Art of War. ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’.”

He then asked the former president: “Is that how you viewed Vladimir? Did you view Vladimir Putin and people like President Xi and Kim Jong Un and the Iranian mullahs as enemies that you needed to keep close?”

“I got along with these people. I got along with them well. That doesn’t mean they are good people. That doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that I understood them, and perhaps they understood me. Maybe they understood me even better, that’s OK, because they knew there would be a big penalty,” Mr Trump answered before talking about North Korea and then repeating himself.

Hannity then said: “I want to understand your thinking, though, and the thinking is: ‘We got along, but you knew that they were looking out for their interests at all times’.”

“100 per cent,” responded Mr Trump.

“And you understood that they were capable of evil things,” Hannity continued, leading the former president towards an opportunity to chastise the Russian leader’s actions in Ukraine, such as targeting civilians, as “evil”.

Mr Trump, true to form, did not take up the clearly signposted chance and instead criticised President Joe Biden.

“Putin is for Russia, and you see what happened. And that is all because they didn’t respect our leader,” he replied.

The former president then went straight into one of his greatest hits: “Look, there was nobody — and Putin will tell you this, if he was telling the truth, and I am sure he has told it to all of his inner sanctum — nobody was tougher on Russia than me.”

Mr Trump then returned to his claim that for four years while he was in office Russia “did nothing” and did not attack Ukraine.

Republican anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project commented on a clip of the exchange: “This shouldn’t be a hard question.”

Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has said that Mr Putin did not invade Ukraine during the Trump presidency as the president was so hostile towards Nato.

“To Putin’s mind it’s a binary proposition, a weaker Nato is a stronger Russia so I think Putin saw Trump doing a lot of his work for him, and thought maybe in a second term Trump would make good on his promise to get out of Nato,” he said in a recent interview.

Former press secretary Stephanie Grisham has also said that Mr Trump would have taken a very hands off approach to Ukraine were he still in office and would tell the Russian leader: “Go on in there.”

“He really admired Putin, and I saw that firsthand,” she added.