At one of his FDR-like press conferences, this one on Jan. 7 in Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump was asked about the Ukraine crisis and the causes of the conflict. Trump said when he first heard of the possibility of NATO extending membership to Ukraine, he commented, “There will be a war.”
“A big part of the problem was, Russia—for many, many years, long before Putin—said, ‘You could never have NATO involved with Ukraine.’ Now, they’ve said that. That’s been, like, written in stone….
“And somewhere along the line Biden said, ‘No. They should be able to join NATO.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that,” Trump said, adding, “And when I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said, you’re going to end up in a war….”
Trump also criticized the West for throwing Russia out of the G8. “I’d love to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it’s not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia. It was the G8,” Trump said at the White House when he announced new U.S. reciprocal tariffs.
