If you follow the Kevin Jackson Network, then you’ve heard us say it before. Putin didn’t dare make a move Donald Trump didn’t approve of. Because he didn’t want to be on Trump’s sh*t list.
It’s not rocket science. When Trump saw an injustice, he took action. Whether it was lop-sided trade, or countries that failed to pay their fair share at the UN table, Trump didn’t settle for nonsense. Such is the case with Russia. Trump was able to work well with Putin, because Putin was never given the chance to test Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
Oddly enough, the New York Times just admitted as much.
Fox News reports:
Former President Trump said Tuesday that Putin’s aggressive actions in Ukraine would never have happened while he was president.
“I know [Putin] very well. Very, very well [and] … this never would have happened … had I been in office, not even thinkable,” Trump said.
Trump is correct.
Whether Putin respects Trump too much, or fears him too much is a moot point. It only matters that the Russian president would never make these moves if Trump were still in office.
New York Times reporter Peter Baker said, “[Trump] said yesterday ‘this wouldn’t have happened when I was president,’ or somehow he was too tough … It is a good question whether President Trump was volatile enough that President Putin didn’t know how he would react to, you know, something more aggressive in Ukraine.”
Baker went on to claim on “Deadline: White House” that Trump was already doing Moscow’s bidding by “driv[ing] a wedge in NATO” by asking them to pay defense spending as well as not retaliating on Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
Tensions are broiling between the West and Moscow amid the former Soviet country’s decision to recognize and roll into separatist regions in Eastern Ukraine. Biden said during a press briefing Tuesday that Putin was beginning an “invasion.” He said the stockpiles of blood on the Ukrainian border were an imminent sign of aggressive military intentions.
“You don’t need blood unless you plan on starting a war,” Biden said about Russia’s actions.
The Biden administration – along with the European Union – initially launched some sanctions on Russian oligarchs and banks but withheld the most crippling sanctions pending further action from Moscow, according to The Associated Press. The White House followed up with more sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline, reversing a decision he made in May to lift sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, whose Russian parent company is Gazprom.
It’s funny that Biden now wants to see countries move away from Russian energy. Especially since Biden single-handedly destroyed our own energy independence, and purposely rendered us dependent upon foreign oil. File that under Irony 101.
45 Weighs In
Trump went on to blast Biden for what he believed was a weak response, calling it “very sad.”
“But here’s a guy (Putin) that says … ‘I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent … and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response … it’s very sad,” Trump said.
Baker maintained that “It is a fair question to ask why he didn’t do it while Trump was in office given what close relationship the two had and a fair question to ask why [Putin] chose to do it now.”
He suggested that Putin’s move into Ukraine was to solidify his legacy.
“[Putin] seems to want is to be the leader who brought Russia back together, who reunited some of the empire … That has less to do with us and more to do with him and more to do with his sense of his own historical mission and drive,” he said.
