Trump’s 5 wild factors in TV rant – Zelenskyy ‘not a great man’ to ‘mom of all bombs’
Donald Trump has sparked fury after branding Volodymyr Zelenskyy ‘not a good guy to deal with’ and claiming Vladimir Putin is far easier to handle in a wild TV rant
Donald Trump has sparked fury after slamming Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a wild TV interview(Image: Newsmax)
Donald Trump has sparked fury after firing off a series of wild claims in a TV rant, slamming Volodymyr Zelenskyy while claiming Vladimir Putin is easier to deal with. Speaking in an interview with US news outlet Newsmax, the US President launched a blistering attack on Kyiv’s leadership.
It’s a move that places him on a collision course with Britain and its European allies, who remain firmly united behind Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. Trump’s extraordinary comments follow a dramatic escalation on the ground.
Ukraine resumed drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure on Thursday, triggering a massive blaze at a refinery in Ryazan, around 180 miles southeast of Moscow.
Zelenskyy expressed deep betrayal over Trump’s recent agreement to buy Russian diesel(Image: Ukrinform/Shutterstock)
Kyiv broke a brief three-day truce on oil facilities after Zelenskyy accused the Kremlin of secretly continuing to target Ukrainian power grids despite Trump touting a ceasefire agreement.
Zelenskyy expressed deep betrayal over Trump’s recent agreement to buy Russian diesel in a move aimed at curbing US fuel prices ahead of the November midterm elections, warning the deal directly funds Moscow’s war machine.
Here are five of the most sensational takeaways from Trump’s latest jaw-dropping rant.
1. ‘Zelenskyy has destroyed Ukraine’
Trump claimed Zelenskyy had brought ruin upon his own country(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Trump pulled no punches, claiming the Ukrainian leader had brought ruin upon his own country and called for immediate elections to oust him. Recounting a clip he claimed to have seen recently, Trump said: “I watched an interview of a young woman from Ukraine the other day.
“And she said, ‘President Zelenskyy has destroyed our country. President Zelenskyy has taken our men away from us. Our men have no legs, no arms. Our men are, in many cases, in mental institutions or they’re dead.'”
He insisted Ukrainian citizens have had enough of the devastating bloodshed, adding: “I think you need an election because there’s nobody that’s telling me that the people of Ukraine are satisfied with having missiles hitting their apartment building.”
2. ‘Zelenskyy not a good guy to deal with’
Trump took aim at the billions in military hardware handed to Kyiv(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Widening the gulf between himself and Western leaders in London and Brussels, who view Zelenskyy as a heroic democracy defender, Trump took aim at the billions in military hardware handed to Kyiv.
“Zelenskyy’s not a good guy for us to deal with,” Trump said. “Biden gave him hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment. I think if they’re going to end up with a settlement of some kind, they’re not going to do it with him.”
Claiming the Ukrainian commander-in-chief was actively stalling peace talks, Trump added: “He doesn’t want to settle. He says he wants to settle, but he doesn’t. No, I’m not a big fan of Zelensky. They’ve destroyed that country.”
3. Russia ‘would have ended war in one day except for wrong turn’
Trump said Vladimir Putin was feeling the squeeze from mounting body counts
In one of his most baffling observations yet, Trump suggested the Russian military’s botched early invasion could have wrapped up in 24 hours if Moscow’s forces hadn’t taken a wrong turn on the road.
“Had they not taken the right turn onto dirt instead of going up a concrete highway, it would have ended in one day,” Trump argued, downplaying the fierce Ukrainian resistance that repelled the Kremlin’s blitz on Kyiv.
He acknowledged that Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin was feeling the squeeze from mounting body counts as the war drags toward its sixth year.
“I can imagine Putin’s not exactly thrilled because you’re getting into six years of war,” Trump said. “They’re losing 25,000 men. Now that number is going up to 32,000, mostly men, mostly military…but they’re losing a tremendous amount of people and I want to see it stop.”
4. ‘Mother of all bombs to hit Iran’
Trump has threatened to unleash ‘the mother of all bombs’ on Iran(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Turning his sights briefly away from Eastern Europe, Trump rattled the global sabre by floating the deployment of huge firepower in Iran, while insisting he would stop short of nuclear war.
“The mother of all bombs is not nuclear. It’s not nuclear at all. It’s just an extremely large bomb. It’s like a tiny nuclear bomb,” he said.
Bragging about America’s atomic arsenal, he added: “The mother of all bombs is one big bomb, but it’s not nuclear. I wouldn’t use nuclear – we don’t have to. We’re the greatest nuclear power in the world. We have more nuclear power than Russia.”
5. Putin wants peace more than Zelenskyy
Trump claimed Putin is actually more open to striking a deal than Zelenskyy(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
In a final kick to the teeth for European diplomats striving to keep the anti-Kremlin coalition together, Trump claimed Putin is actually more open to striking a deal than Zelenskyy.
“It should end soon. I think they actually both would like to see it end,” Trump said. “But I think I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.”
He then lashed out at Ukraine’s latest strikes on Russian energy targets, which have spooked global fuel markets.
“If you tell me that Zelenskyy is again shooting at refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher,” Trump said.
“I think that’s a disgrace. There are a lot of targets that you can hit. But when you shoot at diesel refineries…then he’s not doing a good service for the world.”
