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Published 17:26 IST, March 28th 2022

Trump lambasts Biden's salvos on Putin, accuses POTUS of inciting nuclear war with Russia

Trump said: “When you put him [Biden] into a corner and you talk the way they’re talking [Biden administration] – they’re talking weak," in televised remark

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
IMAGE: AP | Image: self

Former US President Donald Trump on Sunday accused Joe Biden of verbal escalation that might incite a nuclear war with Russia after he made a gaffe that Putin “cannot stay in power” during a key address at Poland’s Royal Castle. “For God’s sake this man [Putin] cannot remain in power,” the US President said at the closing of his impassioned speech that conjured a global condemnation. He also labelled the Russian President a “butcher,” prompting the White House to downplay his rhetorics. Russia's leader “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region,” it clarified in a statement, shortly after Biden’s precarious remark.

In a televised statement to right wing American news broadcaster Newsmax, Trump said: “When you put him [Biden] into a corner and you talk the way they’re talking [Biden administration] – they’re talking weak – and they’re almost giving him [Putin] an incentive.” 

Notably, Joe Biden's predecessor had earlier referred to Vladimir Putin as a 'genius' for declaring the independence of the two breakaway separatists oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk in the eastern  Donbass flak. In an interview on "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show," Donald Trump had said: "I went in yesterday, and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius’. Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful." 

Trump 'did not' handle Russia better than Biden: John Bolton

While the former US Commander-in-Chief derided the sitting POTUS' ways of handling Russia’s war on Ukraine, his former national security advisor John Bolton widely condemned his ex-boss Trump’s administrative legacy that steered Ukraine's conflict. Speaking at Rob Schmitt Tonight, Bolton stated that the 45th president "did not" handle Russia better than President Joe Biden.

"We didn't sanction Nord Stream 2," he said, speaking of the natural-gas pipeline running to Germany under the Baltic Sea. "We should have," Bolton said. "We should have brought the project to an end. In almost every case, the sanctions were imposed with Trump complaining about it and saying we were being too hard," Bolton added. "The fact is that he barely knew where Ukraine was. He once asked John Kelly, his second chief of staff, if Finland were a part of Russia. It's just not accurate to say that Trump's behaviour somehow deterred the Russians."

However, Trump on Sunday accused the Biden administration of incentivizing the ‘nuclear war’ through irresponsible rhetoric. “They’re handling him very badly, in my opinion,” he said. 

Off-script comment could have 'created a huge problem': US Senator

US permanent representative to NATO Julianne Smith appeared to defend Biden’s words, stating in a televised discussion that Biden’s words were “a principled human reaction to the stories that he had heard that day”.Many other American lawmakers, though, took a swipe at Biden’s what they described as a “horrendous gaffe” that purportedly “was off the script.” It could have  “created a huge problem” Senator James Risch, a Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee subsequently said.

Among the European dissenters of Biden’s unsuspecting speech, was France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who said, “I wouldn’t use those terms”. The latter has been actively involved in brokering peace-making efforts between Russia and Ukraine alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Biden’s hard-hitting speech not only created a panic in the White House but far in east Asian nations as China condemned it as a provocation. 

Responding to President Biden’s challenging discourse in Poland, the border country with Ukraine, Beijing’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi asserted that all parties should “take responsible actions and play a constructive role on issues concerning peace and stability in Europe, and the world.” In a rather calm statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov advised Biden against making such interfering remarks against Russia’s administrative body. “It’s not up to the president of the US and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia,” he said. Although, Peskov condemned Biden’s liberties, as he said: “Of course, it is unbecoming for the president of the US to make such statements” that he went on to describe as “extremely negative.”

Updated 17:26 IST, March 28th 2022

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