Trump praises Putin and denigrates US leaders at CPAC
Former White House aide and Russia expert Fiona Hill has claimed that Vladimir Putin once tried to make Donald Trump take notice of Russia’s nuclear deterrent, but that the ex-president didn’t understand what the Russian leader was telling him.
“Putin tried to warn Trump about this, but I don’t think Trump figured out what he was saying,” she told Politico, recounting one of the two men’s last meetings. “There was a menace in this exchange. Putin was putting us on notice that if push came to shove in some confrontational environment that the nuclear option would be on the table.”
The interview comes as Mr Trump faces a backlash for claiming to have saved Nato, despite the fact that he routinely denigrated it during his presidency and even reportedly considered pulling the US out of the alliance altogether.
“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent Nato members to start paying their dues, which amounted to billions of dollars,” Mr Trump said in an emailed statement to reporters. “There would be no Nato if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly,” he added, also falsely implying that the Obama administration only sent Ukraine “blankets” in aid when in fact it sent tens of millions of dollars’ worth of non-lethal military equipment.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has refused to extend the protection of executive privilege to key Trump aides wanted for questioning by the 6 January select committee. Among them is former trade adviser Peter Navarro, who has publicly spelled out a strategy put together to have Mike Pence overturn the election result in Congress.
