Donald Trump threatened to bomb Moscow if Putin ignored demand and attacked Ukraine

Donald Trump claims in an audio that he threatened to “bomb the s*** out of Moscow” in a bid to deter Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine.

The US President was speaking to donors last year during a fundraising event when he reportedly made the comment. It was also during the presidential campaign that Trump claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. “With Putin I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the s*** out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice,’”

Trump said during one 2024 fundraiser, according to the audio obtained by CNN. “And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10%.”

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Trump also made similar claims over a conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping over Taiwan. He alleged that he would bomb Beijing if he invaded. “He thought I was crazy,” Trump said of Xi, before noting that “we never had a problem.”

The reported claims of warnings to Putin and XI were said to have taken place at fundraisers in New York and Florida which have been detailed in a new book ‘2024.

The surfacing of the audios comes several months after Trump took over the presidency in January and there is no end to the conflict in Ukraine in sight.

And Trump said on Tuesday that he’s “not happy” with Putin, saying Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine is “killing a lot of people” on both sides. “I’m not happy with him, I can tell you that much right now. This is killing a lot of people,” Trump said of Putin during a meeting with his Cabinet.

The president also acknowledged that his previous suggestions that he might be able to cajole Russia’s president into bringing the fighting to a close and quickly ending the war in Ukraine has “turned out to be tougher.”

It was notable for a president who has all but aligned himself with Putin at moments in the past and has praised the Russian leader effusively at times — though less so in recent months.

The Cabinet meeting comments came a day after Trump said the United States will now send more weapons to Ukraine — dramatically reversing a previous announcement of a pause in critical, previously approved firepower deliveries to Kyiv in the midst of concerns that America’s own military stockpiles have declined too much.

“We wanted (to) put defensive weapons (in). Putin is not, he’s not treating human beings right,” Trump said during the Cabinet meeting, explaining the pause’s reversal. “It’s killing too many people. So we’re sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine and I’ve approved that.”

Trump’s decision to remove the pause follows him privately having expressed frustration with Pentagon officials for announcing a halt in some deliveries last week — an action he felt wasn’t properly coordinated with the White House, according to three people familiar with the matter.