Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mikhail Metzel | Evelyn Hockstein | Via Reuters
President Donald Trump told campaign donors last year that he had threatened to “bomb the s— out of Moscow” if Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, according to a new report.
Trump at the same donor meeting claimed he similarly threatened Chinese President Xi Jinping to deter China from invading Taiwan, according to audio obtained by CNN and detailed in a forthcoming book, “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.”
“With Putin I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the s— out of Moscow,” Trump told donors at the meeting, according to the audio from the May 14, 2024, meeting at New York’s Pierre Hotel.
” ‘I’m telling you I have no choice,’ ” Trump recalled saying.
“And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10%.”
Trump said that Xi largely dismissed Trump’s threats against China.
“He thought I was crazy,” Trump said, adding that “we never had a problem.”
NBC News obtained the audio from the authors of the new book, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf.
Trump, who was first president from January 2017 to January 2021, did not say on the audio when he made the alleged threats.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, when Joe Biden was president.
A White House spokeswoman, when asked about CNN’s report, told CNBC on Wednesday: “As President Trump has said time and again, Russia never dared invade Ukraine when he was in office. It happened only when Biden was in office.”
“Thanks to this President’s leadership, America is once again the leader of the free world, and peace through strength is restored,” the spokeswoman said. “President Trump won on an America First agenda, and he is working hard to implement the mandate the American people gave him.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he “cannot confirm or deny this, even if I wanted to,” when asked about the report, according to Reuters.
“Whether it is fake or not, we do not know either,” Peskov said, adding, “there is a lot of fake news these days.”
The audio underscores how Trump often spoke more candidly behind closed doors on the campaign trail as he tried to woo donors, CNN noted.
Since Trump returned to the White House, he has ramped up rhetoric criticizing Putin.
On Tuesday, Trump said he was “not happy” with the Russian leader for the war against Ukraine.
“He’s killing a lot of people …. his soldiers and their soldiers, mostly, and it’s now up to 7,000 a week,” Trump said of Putin during a Cabinet meeting.
