Trump liked to brag to his rich friends that he threatened Putin and Xi with bombing Moscow and Beijing:
“With Putin I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the sh*t out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice,’” Trump said during one 2024 fundraiser, according to the audio. “And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10%.”
Trump later claimed he relayed a similar warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping over a potential invasion of Taiwan, telling him that the US would bomb Beijing in response.
“He thought I was crazy,” Trump said of Xi, before noting that “we never had a problem.”
The audio has not previously been aired before and is detailed in a new book called “2024”.
I’m sure he’s lying because he’s ultimately a coward. But it’s telling that he uses that kind of puerile drivel as a sales pitch and these rich fools like it.
Trump referenced his conversations with Putin and Xi while arguing that he would have staved off conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza if he were president instead of Joe Biden – a claim he’s continued to repeat as he now struggles to end both wars.
He talked a lot of shit:
“One thing I’d do is any student that protests, I would throw them out of the country,” Trump said at a second closed-door fundraiser, vowing to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses. “Those people made a big mistake. Throw them out of the country, and I think that will stop it.”
After one donor voiced concern that some of the student protesters would eventually be “running this country,” Trump pressed the audience to “really be generous” in helping him get elected.
“If you get me elected, we will set that movement back 25 to 30 years,” he said.
At another fundraiser, Trump pressed attendees to give more to his campaign by asserting that Republicans were at a disadvantage because “the welfare people will always vote for Democrats.”
“The unions give big money, the civil service stuff gives big money, and they have the advantage of welfare,” he said. “The one thing that I have to say to my Jewish friends: You’ve got to get them to start voting Republican.”
This does show that even beyond the mass deportation of undocumented workers, his other deportation threats were something he was serious about from the beginning. He’s always seen deportation of anyone, even citizens, as a viable way to enforce his will. It’s all about threats, tariffs, deportation, revenge and graft. Every single bit of it ugly and nihilistic.
He understood from the beginning that this was what drives the right wing in America, not “freedom”, the flag, Jesus or family values. For way too many of our fellow citizens it’s just about hate and resentment and he was ready to deliver. And he’s doing it.