Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton interrupted BBC Berlin correspondent Jessica Parker to assert President Donald Trump had “never criticized” Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview posted to YouTube on Tuesday.
Trump wrote that Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” and was “needlessly killing a lot of people” during the Russia-Ukraine war in a May 25 Truth Social post. Yet when Parker noted Trump had occasionally “criticized” Putin, Clinton claimed it was a verified fact that he had not.
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“He is very enamored of Vladimir Putin, who is a brutal dictator,” Clinton said, prompting Parker to note Trump’s criticism of the Russian leader.
“Donald Trump has never criticized Putin,” Clinton claimed. “You can go back.”
Parker noted Trump had specifically been critical of Putin’s “handling” of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“No, no. You can go back and look — because many of us have done it — looking for one moment,” the former secretary of state said. “You know, he said, ‘Come on, he needs to solve this.’”
Trump also criticized Putin during a July 8 cabinet meeting, Reuters reported.
“I’m not happy with Putin. I can tell you that much right now,” the president said, highlighting the high death toll of the war, the outlet reported.
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin … He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” Trump said, according to Reuters.
Clinton said she was heartened by NATO members agreeing in June to boost their defense spending after Trump’s pressure and by the president’s July deal to get NATO to pay for U.S. weapons for Ukraine during an Aug. 15 episode of “Raging Moderates.”
“I think all of that is a very good signal that there is beginning to be a better understanding, both by the president and the people around him, as well as by the leaders of our European allies, that there can be common ground amongst us,” she said at the time. “And the kind of dismissiveness that we saw in the first Trump administration has been replaced by a much more obvious working relationship to the good of European security, transatlantic security, and hopefully Ukrainian security. So I’m actually encouraged.”
However, when Parker asserted that “Donald Trump’s pressure has led … to Europe spending more on defense” and asked if she would characterize the development “as a success,” Clinton credited Putin instead of the U.S. president.
“I think the real credit for that goes to Vladimir Putin. I think Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior, starting with Georgia, Crimea, and then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has woken up the Europeans unlike anything anybody else could ever tell them,” Clinton told Parker. “Obviously, Trump has pushed that, but it’s the Europeans who finally have realized that Vladimir Putin is attempting to undermine European security.”
Moreover, Clinton said that she believed Trump wanted to model himself after dictators like Putin during an April 19, 2024, episode of “Defending Democracy with Marc Elias.”
“Putin does what [Trump] would like to do,” Clinton told host and election lawyer Marc Elias. “Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists into exile, rule without any check or balance. That’s what Trump really wants.”
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