Former U.S. President Donald Trump said during Thursday’s 2024 presidential debate that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he had remained in office.
Trump said that, among other factors, President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan had emboldened Putin. Biden fired back, accusing Trump of being too eager to make a deal with “war criminal” Putin to end the conflict.
“If we had a real president – a president that Putin respected – he would never have invaded Ukraine,” Trump said.
“There are a lot of people dead right now. A lot more than people know. People are talking about numbers. The numbers may be double, maybe triple,” Trump said of the casualties of the Ukraine war.
Trump said Biden “did nothing to stop it.”
“In fact, I think he encouraged Russian intervention,” Trump continued. “I’ll tell you what happened. He handled Afghanistan so badly, it was very embarrassing. It was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. Putin saw that and realized his incompetence. He should have fired those generals, just like I fired the generals you mentioned. So he’s no longer in love.”
The remarks were a sarcastic response to Biden’s previous criticism of Trump’s tempestuous relationship with Defense Secretary Gen. Jim Mattis.
“In Afghanistan, the most embarrassing episode in our country’s history, no generals were fired,” Trump continued. “We left billions of dollars worth of equipment behind, we lost 13 great soldiers, we had 38 killed. And, by the way, we left our people behind. We left the American people behind.”
“President Putin looked at it and said, ‘Hey, I think we’re going to invade,'” Trump said. “This was his dream. I talked to him about it, about his dream. The difference is, he would never have invaded Ukraine, just like he would never in a million years have Israel been invaded by Hamas.”
“Do you know why? Because Iran went bankrupt with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with Iran. They ran out of money. They went bankrupt. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. They had no money for terrorism. So there was no terrorism under my administration. The whole world is exploding here under him,” Trump concluded.
It’s hard to argue that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was anything but a disaster, but he certainly tried to do so. Trump was fundamentally right about the American casualties. Suicide bombing attack A terrorist attack at Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, later claimed by the Islamic State in Afghanistan (known as ISIS-K), left 13 US soldiers dead. President Trump’s statement that “38 soldiers were killed” was likely a reference to the Taliban. photograph under A US Special Forces helicopter in August 2011, during the second term of the Obama administration, when Biden was vice president.
As Trump said, Biden left $7.2 billion worth of U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan for the Taliban to seize. Confirmed By the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR).
Trump was also right about Biden. Withdrawn The sanctions were reinstated on Iran after Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal. Trump says Biden’s enforcement of sanctions against Iran has become dangerously lax. Critics Like Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana).
Biden is controversial Unzip Tehran has said it will surrender $6 billion in Iranian assets in August 2023, claiming the money is rightfully Iranian property and that it will take steps to ensure Iran does not use it to support terrorism. But skeptics found those assurances unconvincing, pointing out that even if Iran spent all of the money on food and medicine, the $6 billion would still be available for more nefarious activities.
In response to Trump’s criticism, Biden said he had “never heard a more idiotic story in my life.”
In fact, we are in a situation where, in light of that last point, Iran attacked American troops, caused brain injuries to many of our soldiers, and President Trump did nothing during his presidency, when they were attacked, he said they just had a headache, and did nothing when the attacks happened.
Iran missile attack On January 8, 2020, US forces carried out airstrikes at Al-Asad military base in Iraq in retaliation for the US airstrike that killed terrorist mastermind General Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport.
The Pentagon and then-President Trump initially said there were no American casualties in the attack, but the Pentagon later said an increasing number of service members who were present during the attack were reporting symptoms of concussions caused by the missile explosion.
The final number of reported concussions was Increased Of the 109, approximately 70% were able to return to duty within one month.
Biden’s criticism was extremely dangerous and disingenuous. Exactly the same thing Such incidents have occurred under his watch. When Iran used proxy militias to attack US positions in Iraq during last year’s Gaza war, no casualties were initially reported, but US soldiers later complained of concussion-like symptoms. The number of such complaints quickly grew. double As originally reported by the Department of Defense.
Some of the missiles fired by Iranian proxies were targeted at the very same Al-Asad airbase in western Iraq. Biden said strongly Criticized Biden was criticized for his surprisingly slow and weak response to these attacks: He did not order retaliatory strikes until Iranian proxy forces struck a Syrian outpost with missiles and drones, killing three U.S. soldiers.
“Second, we got over 100,000 Americans and others out of Afghanistan during the airlift,” Biden reiterated. talk point Biden has been using the term since the disaster in Afghanistan, where he has frequently claimed credit for evacuating so many people so quickly.
“The third point is, if you look at Trump’s actions in Ukraine, we found ourselves in a situation where this guy told Trump, ‘Do what you want. Do what you want,'” Biden argued, adding, “What Trump did with Putin was encourage him.”
Biden’s frequent slip-ups during the debate were an example of when he clearly meant that Trump had told Putin to do whatever he wanted, though Biden offered no evidence that Trump had had such a conversation with Putin.
“Listen to what Putin said when he walked in,” Biden continued, speaking of Putin. “He said we’re going to take Kiev in five days. Remember, it was part of the former Soviet Union. Kiev is what he wanted to rebuild.”
“In fact, he did nothing. He couldn’t get it done. And they lost thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers. Half a million soldiers,” he said.
This was an unpalatable criticism for Biden, as Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, long after Donald Trump had left office. If Biden was motivated by Trump allegedly telling him to do whatever he wanted, he waited a long time to do it.
The total number of Russian casualties in the Ukraine invasion has been the subject of much debate. Biden’s figure of 500,000 almost consistent European casualty estimates place the total at around 150,000 killed, while Ukraine claims around 509,000 Russian casualties and 180,000 killed.
Trump denied giving Putin free rein over Ukraine and said Putin’s proposed terms for a ceasefire – which included Russia retaining most of the Ukrainian territory it occupies and a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO – were “unacceptable”.
“This is a war that should never have started,” Trump argued. “If this war had a leader, he would have led everybody. He’s given Ukraine over $200 billion. That’s a lot of money. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
“Every time Zelensky comes to this country, he brings home $60 billion,” Trump said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “He’s the greatest salesman of all time. I’m not criticizing him. I’m not criticizing anything. I’m talking about the money we’re spending on this war. We shouldn’t be spending. This should never have happened.”
“As the next president, I will resolve the war between President Putin and President Zelensky before I take office on January 20th. I will resolve that war,” Trump promised.
“People are being killed needlessly and senselessly. I will solve this problem. I will solve it quickly, before I take office,” he reiterated.
“The fact is, Putin is a war criminal,” Biden responded. “He’s killed thousands of people. And he’s made one thing clear: He wants to re-establish what was once part of the Soviet empire. Not just one part, he wants all of Ukraine. That’s what he wants.”
“So do you think he’s going to stop there?” Biden continued. “Do you think he’s going to stop once he takes Ukraine? What do you think happens to Poland? What do you think happens to Belarus? What do you think happens to the NATO countries?”
Putin is indeed a war criminal. Unsolved arrests warrant He was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) not for murder, but for abducting Ukrainian children.
President Biden said, something terrible The same thing is already happening in Belarus, which is ruled by a brutal dictator named Alexander Lukashenko who is absolutely loyal to Vladimir Putin. Said He is willing to join Putin in a war against NATO and claims that Russia has moved some of its nuclear weapons to its territory.
“So if he wants war, find out what he’s going to do, because if in fact he does what he says he will and walks away, by the way, all the money we’re giving Ukraine is for weapons that we’re making in the United States. At this point, we’re giving them weapons, we’re not giving them money,” Biden said.
Weapons currently being sent to Ukraine Drawn Instead of ordering from U.S. manufacturers in a way that would create U.S. jobs and income, as Biden has suggested, the weapons would be sourced from U.S. military stockpiles. This approach was deemed necessary by the Pentagon to get weapons to the U.S. front line quickly. Tensions between the U.S. and Russia have risen sharply. rise Rapidly Ukraine is taking advantage of these advanced American weapons.
“Our NATO allies have given Ukraine as much money as we have, and that’s why we’re strong,” Biden said.
This is not true. The numbers are pretty close The sheer scale of government spending: NATO’s funding target for Ukraine this year is $42 billion, while the US has pledged more than $60 billion. Even more worrying is the reluctance of some NATO countries to maintain this level of spending in the future.
