(NEW YORK) — The judge in former President Trump’s criminal hush money case in New York City says Trump’s trial will proceed on March 25 as planned, but the defense wants to delay that date.
In the case’s final hearing before the trial gets underway, Judge Juan Merchan began the proceedings Thursday by denying Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, saying the trial would begin March 25 with jury selection.
Defense attorney Todd Blanche responded by arguing for a delay.
Trump, who is present in the courtroom, entered the lower Manhattan courthouse shortly before 9 a.m. ET.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging that Trump falsified Trump Organization records to hide payments he made to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who allegedly used the money to kill stories about Trump’s long-denied extramarital affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal just days before the 2016 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has denied all wrongdoing. His attorney Todd Blanche has argued in pretrial motions that the payments to Cohen were lawful money transfers from Trump’s own personal bank accounts.
“President Trump cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts,” Blanche wrote.
The judge overseeing the case, Juan Manuel Merchan, scheduled Thursday’s hearing late last year to resolve pretrial motions and finalize the trial’s start date, which is currently scheduled for March 25.
(WASHINGTON) — New reporting about intelligence related to Russia wanting to put a nuclear weapon into space, possibly to use against satellites, raises key questions about the country’s intentions and the potential ramifications of an orbital detonation.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 — signed by Russia, the U.S. and numerous other countries — technically still bans putting any weapons of mass destruction in outer space, including nuclear arms.
One question appears to be what Russia might be considering deploying that falls short of that ban.
At the same time, Russia has broken from other nuclear agreements: Russian President Vladimir Putin said early last year that the country was suspending its participation in the New START treaty, first signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, which implements caps on the number of nuclear weapons deployed by Russia and the U.S. and inspections of nuclear sites.
Russia, along with the U.S. and China, has also used missiles to destroy its own satellites before. The U.S. did so in 2008, with a ship-based interceptor missile, and Russia did it in 2021 to take out an aging satellite.
Space experts warn against using missiles to take out satellites because it creates voluminous debris in space that could hurt other key vessels like weather satellites and satellites powering communication networks.
But there’s another worry: Could a nuclear effect be triggered to paralyze a constellation of satellites, such as communications satellites?
“These systemic threats … merit further consideration,” notes one assessment from the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies, which warned of digital vulnerabilities as well: “Cyberattacks against a constellation’s control systems or nuclear detonations in space could disable many satellites at once.”
The CSIS assessment noted, too, that a “growing density of space debris” was “an additional cause for concern, and one that is increasingly difficult to mitigate.”
Both the White House and lawmakers on Wednesday sought to allay public concerns about the intelligence regarding Russia — which first became public after House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner warned of a “national security threat” related to a “destabilizing foreign military capability.”
“We are going to work together to address this matter, as we do all sensitive matters that are classified,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
“But we just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel,” he said.
(LONDON) — At least 200 people have been killed and thousands have been forced to flee following a sharp uptick of violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
In a “dramatic resurgence” of violence, the March 23 Movement (M23) armed rebel group is advancing towards Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, forcing thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire to flee as fighting intensifies between M23, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and various other armed groups.
Aid organizations tell ABC News that they are seeing an influx of wounded civilians in Goma and Sake — a small city around 12 miles from Goma considered the last line of defense to the capital — amid reports of intensified use of heavy artillery, shelling and indiscriminate bombing in civilian areas.
“Patients just keep arriving on motorcycles and buses,” says the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “Continuous fighting is making the delivery of aid increasingly difficult or even impossible, especially in the case of medical supplies, in the isolated areas of Rutshuru and Masisi.”
According to the United Nations, over 200 civilians have been killed in Ituri province in eastern DRC and over the last few weeks, more than 52,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes. The new escalation of violence has destroyed over 2,000 homes and closed or demolished 80 schools.
Doctors without Borders (MSF) says many of the war-wounded civilians have come in with gunshot wounds and injuries from explosions.
“The situation is extremely concerning,” said Çaglar Tahiroglu, project coordinator at the MSF from Mweso General Hospital, where at least 2,500 people are seeking refuge form fighting. “The hospital is overwhelmed, with thousands of people crowded inside … Alongside the Ministry of Health, we are doing our best to help everyone, but we do not have enough necessities, such as food.”
What’s causing the conflict?
The primarily Tutsi-led M23 movement — one of the estimated 100 armed groups operating in the eastern DRC according to American and U.N. officials — has been fighting for decades in eastern DRC against primarily ethnic Hutu militia groups as they battle over power, land and mineral resources and trade routes, with others fighting to defend their communities from attacks.
The complicated mix of historic ethnic and national rivalries and geopolitics coupled with competition for DRC’s extensive mineral resources — a country which is considered one of the world’s most mineral-rich — has fueled conflict and heightened regional tensions in the Great Lakes, leading experts to warn that this may hinder prospects for peace and stability in the region.
DRC President Félix Tshisekedi has accused Rwanda of backing the M23 revels through military support.
“I’ve had enough of invasions and M23 rebels backed by Kigali,” said Thisekedi in December.
In a call with Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged both nations to take measures to de-escalate the situation, including removing troops from the border.
The Human Rights Watch says the human rights situation “remains dire,” documenting various abuses by government security forces and armed groups including “massacres, abductions, rape, sexual violence, recruitment of children, and other attacks on civilians with near total impunity.”
The cycle of ongoing violence has led to the world’s largest internal displacement with an estimated seven million people displaced, according to the International Office of Migration.
In the DRC’s capital of Kinshasa, protesters have recently taken to the streets outside Western embassies, including that of the United States, accusing them of failing to intervene in the offensive that has caused havoc in eastern DRC.
Protesters set tires on fire and burned flags as they expressed their anger before police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds.
“The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa has sent three security alerts to U.S. citizens about protests throughout the city of Kinshasa since February 9, 2024,” a State Department Spokesperson tells ABC News. “Protests this past week have occurred at foreign embassies, international organization offices, and foreign-owned businesses. The alerts stated that protesters are targeting foreigners living in Kinshasa and other major cities, diplomats, and employees of international organizations and their vehicles.”
The embassy has since advised U.S. citizens to keep a low profile and limit their movements.
Meanwhile, Tshisekedi and other East African leaders continue talks under the Nairobi and Luanda processes — regional initiatives aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern DRC through diplomatic and negotiation efforts.
“We reaffirm our support for the Luanda and Nairobi Processes and call on all parties to adhere fully to commitments made under regional mediation processes,” said the State Department.
(NEW YORK) — The City of New York on Wednesday sued the companies behind SnapChat, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, accusing them of fomenting a “nationwide youth mental health crisis” by exposing children “to a nonstop stream of harmful content.”
The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court, alleged the companies intentionally designed their platforms to purposefully manipulate and addict children and teens to social media applications. The lawsuit pointed to the use of algorithms to generate feeds that keep users on the platforms longer and encourage compulsive use.
“Youth are now addicted to Defendants’ platforms in droves, resulting in substantial interference with school district operations and imposing a large burden on cities, school districts and public hospital systems that provide mental health services to youth,” the lawsuit said. “While presented as ‘social,’ Defendants’ platforms have in a myriad of ways promoted disconnection, disassociation, and a legion of resulting mental and physical harms.”
The lawsuit accused the social media companies of manipulating users by making them feel compelled to respond to one positive action with another positive action.
SnapChat addressed the lawsuit via a statement, denying the allegations.
“Snapchat was intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media, with a focus on helping Snapchatters communicate with their close friends. Snapchat opens directly to a camera – rather than a feed of content that encourages passive scrolling – and has no traditional public likes or comments. While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence,” the statement, provided by Ashley Adams, a spokeswoman for Snap Inc., said.
TikTok also responded to the city’s lawsuit.
“TikTok has industry-leading safeguards to support teens’ well-being, including age-restricted features, parental controls, an automatic 60-minute time limit for users under 18, and more. We regularly partner with experts to understand emerging best practices, and will continue to work to keep our community safe by tackling industry-wide challenges,” a TikTok spokesperson said.
Meta, which owns Instagram, stated the safety of teens is a top priority.
“We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools and features to support them and their parents. We’ve spent a decade working on these issues and hiring people who have dedicated their careers to keeping young people safe and supported online,” a company spokesperson said.
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience online has always been core to our work. In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we’ve built services and policies to give young people age-appropriate experiences, and parents robust controls. The allegations in this complaint are simply not true,” said José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson.
“These platforms take advantage of reciprocity by, for example, automatically telling the sender when their message was seen or sending notifications when a message was delivered, encouraging teens to return to the platform again and again, and perpetuating online engagement and immediate responses,” the lawsuit said.
“Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. “Our city is built on innovation and technology, but many social media platforms end up endangering our children’s mental health, promoting addiction and encouraging unsafe behavior.”
“Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be, exposing our children to a non-stop stream of harmful content and fueling our national youth mental health crisis,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. “Our city is built on innovation and technology, but many social media platforms end up endangering our children’s mental health, promoting addiction and encouraging unsafe behavior.”
(ATLANTA) — The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s Georgia election interference case is set to hear arguments over motions to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, primarily over accusations that she benefited financially from a personal relationship with a prosecutor she hired for the case.
Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer, filed a motion last month seeking to dismiss the charges against him and disqualify Willis, alleging that she improperly benefited from a “personal, romantic relationship” with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Trump and seven other defendants in the case subsequently joined the effort.
Willis and Wade, in a court filing, admitted to the relationship but said it “does not amount to a disqualifying conflict of interest.” The office also flatly denied any financial benefit, saying the relationship “has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit to District Attorney Willis.”
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Feb 15, 8:45 AM
Attorneys have clashed in court filings
The district attorney’s office and attorneys for the defendants have traded accusations in a series of court filings leading up to Thursday’s hearing.
Trump co-defendant Michael Roman has accused Fani Willis and Nathan Wade of violating “laws regulating the use of public monies” and says they “suffer from irreparable conflicts of interest.” Specifically, he alleges Wade paid for multiple trips for him and Willis, including to Napa Valley and Belize. Credit card statements later revealed Wade paid for at least two flights for Willis on his credit card.
Wade, in an affidavit submitted to the court, said expenses between him and Willis were “roughly divided equally” and that he used his personal funds. The affidavit also said the relationship started after he was hired on the case in 2021, and that he and Willis have never cohabitated.
However, Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, has alleged some of the statements in Wade’s affidavit were inaccurate. Merchant says she a witness ready to testify that the relationship predated Wade’s hiring, which would dispute Wade’s affidavit.
(NEW YORK) — Fish, sea turtles, elephants, sharks, shorebirds and more of the world’s migratory species are in dire decline, according to the first-ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report from the United Nations.
“This report showed us for the first time, in a very sobering way, that across the globe, over half the species that migrate are in decline. And that’s largely because of human activities,” Mark Hebblewhite, professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Montana, told ABC News Monday. “Migration allows animals to achieve greater numbers. So if we lose migration, we lose lots of numbers of animals.”
Approximately 44% of migratory species across the world are in population decline and more than 20% of migratory species face extinction, according to the U.N.’s report, published Monday.
Migratory species are defined as wild animals whose entire population, or any geographically separate part of the population, periodically and predictably cross one or more national jurisdictional boundaries at different times in their lifecycles, according to the U.N.
“They regularly travel, sometimes thousands of miles, to reach these places. They face enormous challenges and threats along the way as well at their destinations where they breed or feed,” Amy Fraenkel, executive secretary for the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), told UN News.
Of the 1,189 species monitored for the report, migratory fish face the most dire threat, with 97% of the species on the brink of extinction.
“The situation is far worse in aquatic ecosystems,” the report said.
The report lays blame at the hands of human activity and climate change, saying overexploitation, such as illegal hunting and fishing, and habitat loss have led to the worrisome population decline.
“Migratory species encounter more problems,” Hebblewhite said. “And we as a species, humans, are generally the reason for these problems.”
In terms of climate change, the report calls for increased global efforts to reduce chemical, plastic, light and noise pollution are needed to reduce humans’ impact on the world’s ecosystems.
The boom of agriculture and urbanization has led to “loss or reduction in important habitats such as stopover sites or deterioration in breeding and foraging habitats,” according to a statement by Graeme Taylor, CMS Science Councilor for New Zealand.
Urgent action is recommended in the report to preserve the species that are most threatened — this means protecting not only the at-risk animal groups but also their migratory sites.
“We put up fences, we put up roads, we put up barriers, we change land use, we drain our wetlands and we make a farm that changes the migratory stopover sites for birds,” Hebblewhite said.
Migratory species in Asia are the most threatened, according to the report, which states species in North America and Africa follow in experiencing the most decline.
Alternatively, migratory species in Europe, Central America, South America and the Caribbean have presented population increases.
There are 4,508 total species that are considered migratory, according to the report, which notes 399 of those species were not covered in the findings and “deserve greater attention.”
“In the future, it would be wonderful to see the scope of this important work expand to also include assessment of species that are not currently listed on the CMS appendices,” Dr. Philippa Brakes, chair of the CMS Expert Group on Animal Culture, said in a statement.
Brakes noted that the report “shines a light on the complexity of conserving migratory species,” but maintains that “collaboration between nations” is needed “to ensure that populations thrive.”
The first-of-its-kind report was prepared by conservation scientists at the UN Environment Programme for CMS’ 14th Conference of the States Parties in Samarkand, Uzbekistan from Feb. 12-17.
(WASHINGTON) — An alleged gunman accused of shooting three Metropolitan Police Department officers in Washington, D.C., surrendered Wednesday night after a lengthy standoff, the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed.
The incident unfolded Wednesday morning around 7:30 a.m. when the officers went to a residence to serve an arrest warrant on a subject wanted on a charge of cruelty to animals.
Officers tried to make contact with the individual inside the home, but the suspect refused to go outside, Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters earlier Wednesday.
Officers then tried to go inside the home, and the suspect then fired at them, Smith said.
The three officers suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds and were said to be in “good spirits” at local hospitals, Smith said. A fourth officer was injured but was not shot, she said. All are expected to recover, the MPD said Wednesday night.
The alleged gunman stayed barricaded until Wednesday evening. Authorities negotiated with the subject throughout the day.
The MPD identified the suspect as Julius James, 46, of Southeast, D.C.
He was arrested following his surrender and charged with Cruelty to Animals.
Authorities said additional charges for the assault on the four officers are pending.
ABC was not immediately able to find a legal representative for James.
Samantha Miller of the Humane Rescue Alliance told ABC News that dozens of dogs were recovered Wednesday.
“Officers with the Humane Rescue Alliance removed 31 dogs, 20 adults and 11 puppies, from the home. The dogs are in the care of HRA at a secure location, where they will be examined and provided with the care they need,” Miller said.
President Joe Biden is praying for the officers’ recoveries, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday.
“This shooting is yet another distressing and painful reminder of the toll gun violence is inflicting on families in our communities, and obviously on our nation,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president has taken executive actions to help keep guns out of the dangerous hands, and [the Department of Justice] is implementing the new gun trafficking law in the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, but it’s not enough. We need the Republicans in Congress to act — we need them to be willing to make sure that communities are safer.”
Kansas City police are seen at Union Station, where a shooting broke out during the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory rally on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. (Glenn E. Rice/The Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Investigators are searching for answers after gunfire erupted near the end of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring at least 21 others.
The mass shooting unfolded outside Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, as Chiefs fans were leaving a parade and rally for the NFL champions. More than 800 law enforcement officers were on duty in the area, as one million paradegoers were expected to attend Wednesday’s celebration, according to Kansas City Missouri Mayor Quinton Lucas.
Three suspects were detained and at least one firearm was recovered from the scene, according to the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department. An investigation into the shooting was ongoing, with the motive unclear.
Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News on Wednesday that there was no evidence pointing to terrorism thus far and the local police department would remain the lead agency in the investigation for now.
“I am angry,” Kansas City Missouri Police Chief Graves told reporters Wednesday. “The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment.”
Investigators are still working to determine the total number of victims from the incident. Twenty-two people sustained gunshot wounds and one of them died, police said. Eight of the gunshot victims were hospitalized with “immediately” life-threatening injuries and seven with life-threatening injuries, according to the Kansas City Missouri Fire Department.
Children’s Mercy Kansas City Hospital admitted and treated a total of 12 patients from Wednesday’s shooting, including 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15, according to Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer Stephanie Meyer. Nine of the patients were gunshot victims and three were being treated for “incidental injuries,” Meyer said. All were expected to make a full recovery.
Local radio station KKFI 90.1 FM confirmed that its DJ, Lisa Lopez-Galvan, was killed in the shooting.
“It is with sincere sadness and an extremely heavy and broken heart that we let our community know that KKFI DJ Lisa Lopez, host of Taste of Tejano lost her life today in the shooting at the KC Chiefs’ rally. Our hearts and prayers are with her family,” the radio station said in a statement Wednesday. “This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC Community.”
All Chiefs players, coaches and staff were confirmed safe.
So far this year, there have been at least 48 mass shootings in the United States, with 81 killed and 165 wounded.
(NEW YORK) — When Donald Trump first entered a Manhattan, New York courtroom last April for his arraignment on hush money charges, the moment was historic for the country and novel for the former president.
But in the year that followed, Trump faced four additional indictments and spent about three weeks in New York courtrooms to attend his civil trials — denying wrongdoing in each case. The unprecedented became the norm for a former president simultaneously fighting multiple criminal cases while vying for the presidency.
Trump plans to return to that same New York courtroom on Thursday for the final scheduled hearing before he goes to trial on March 25 for what prosecutors allege was “an expansive and corrupt criminal scheme” to conceal information from voters ahead of the 2016 election.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging that Trump falsified Trump Organization records to hide payments he made to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who allegedly used the money to kill stories about Trump’s long-denied extramarital affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal just days before the 2016 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has denied all wrongdoing.
The judge overseeing the case, Juan Manuel Merchan, scheduled Thursday’s hearing late last year to resolve pretrial motions and finalize the trial date, which appears likely to be Trump’s first criminal trial this year.
Motion to dismiss
In October, Trump’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the charges by arguing that the case itself was politically motivated, that it interferes with the 2024 election, that it’s barred by the statute of limitations, and that it includes multiple technical defects.
“The pendency of these proceedings, and the manner in which they were initiated, calls into question the integrity of the criminal justice process, is inconsistent with bedrock due process principles, and is interfering with the campaign of the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said in the motion.
Blanche argued that the payments to Cohen were lawful money transfers from Trump’s own personal bank accounts.
“President Trump cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts,” Blanche wrote.
In response, prosecutors argued that Trump is asking for special treatment because he is running for president.
“Courts have repeatedly rejected defendant’s demands for special treatment and instead have adhered to the core principle that the rule of law applies equally to the powerful as to the powerless,” prosecutors wrote.
Meanwhile, in Georgia
As Trump attends the hearing in New York, a separate hearing in his Georgia election interference case is scheduled to take place in Atlanta.
Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ sprawling racketeering case against Trump and 18 co-defendants, has set a two-day hearing to hear motions on whether Willis should be disqualified from the case after multiple defendants accused her of benefiting financially from a personal relationship with a prosecutor she hired in the case. Willis has denied the allegation.
“I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” Judge McAfee said during a Monday hearing. “The state has admitted a relationship existed. And so what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit, again if there even was one.”
Despite the high stakes in Georgia, Trump opted to attend the New York hearing instead of the Fulton County one. He is not required to attend either hearing, and can leave the hearing whenever he wants.
“President Trump will be attending court in New York on Thursday,” Trump’s attorney in Georgia, Steve Sadow, said in a statement Tuesday.
Trump’s trial calendar
Of Trump’s four criminal trials, only two currently have set trial dates. His New York trial is scheduled to begin March 25 and his federal classified documents case in Florida is scheduled to start on May 20, although that trial date appears unlikely to stick given the complexity of the case.
Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, D.C. was initially scheduled to begin on March 4, but the proceedings have been frozen since December while Trump advances his appeal on the grounds of presidential immunity. Last week a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s claim of presidential immunity as it pertains to the case, and on Monday Trump asked the Supreme Court to stay that decision in order to allow the appellate process to play out.
The Supreme Court is currently considering Trump’s application for an emergency stay of the proceedings.
If or when the federal election case resumes, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan would likely need to give the parties at least two months to prepare for a trial, according to NYU Law Professor Richard Pildes.
With that case stalled, Judge Merchan in New York appears positioned to oversee Trump’s first criminal trial and has already begun communicating with the parties about the jury selection process.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a Get Out The Vote campaign rally held at the North Charleston in Charleston, S.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump reacted to Russian President Vladimir Putin saying he prefers President Joe Biden over Trump because Biden is “more experienced” and “more predictable,” is a “great compliment.”
“President Putin of Russia has just given me a great compliment, actually,” Trump said at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.
“He just said that he would much rather have Joe Biden as president than Trump,” he continued. “Now that’s a compliment. A lot of people said, ‘Oh, gee, that’s too bad.’ No, no, that’s a good thing. And of course, he would say that.”
The latest Trump comment comes on the heels of him recently saying at a previous rally in South Carolina that he’d “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to foreign allies of the United States that don’t pay their “fair share” of defense funding — receiving backlash from some critics.
Trump’s latest comment was in response to Putin’s comments during an interview with a correspondent of Russian state television, in which he reportedly said he believes Biden getting reelected would be a better choice for Russia’s interest — though he added he will work with any U.S. leader.
At the North Charleston rally, Trump said it’s a given Putin would prefer Biden’s victory because he himself put a break on Russia’s interest while he was president, especially on the construction of Nord Stream 2, a controversial German-Russian pipeline, which would have carried natural gas from Russia to Europe.
“I stopped Nord Stream 2, and [Biden] approved it right after I left, so Putin is not a fan of mine actually,” Trump said, referring to his role as president in halting the construction of the pipeline by imposing sanctions on it, and Biden’s subsequent waiver of sanctions on the pipeline, which critics believed would give Russia an energy dominance over Europe.
“He doesn’t want to have me. He wants Biden because he’s going to be given everything he wants, including Ukraine,” Trump claimed of Putin and Biden’s relationship. “He’s gonna have his dream of getting Ukraine because of Biden … The only president in the last five that hasn’t given Russia anything is a president known as Donald J. Trump.”
On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly touted a good relationship with Putin, calling him “smart” and claiming if he had gotten reelected, the ongoing Ukraine-Russian war would not have happened.
But Trump has also recently taken some heat for suggesting he’d “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies that don’t contribute their ”fair share” for NATO — a comment Trump’s allies say was a joke.
“One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, Will you protect us?’” Trump said at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend. “I said, you didn’t pay, you’re delinquent … No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
At his rally in North Charleston on Wednesday, Trump doubled down on the idea of not protecting NATO allies that don’t pay their “fair share” but didn’t go as far as to say he’d “encourage” Russia to attack them.
“One of the heads of the country stood up and said, does that mean that if we don’t pay the bills, that you’re not going to protect us? I said, ‘That’s exactly what it means.’ I’m not going to protect you,” Trump said.
In response to Trump’s doubling down on his NATO comments at the North Charleston rally, South Carolina, the Biden-Harris campaign said he gave Putin the best Valentine’s Day present: permissions to “mow down” American allies.
“Donald Trump just gave Vladimir Putin the best possible Valentine’s Day present: his pinky-promise to give Putin the green light to mow down our allies in Europe if he’s elected president,” the campaign said.
