Donald Trump’s former national security adviser has accused him of making up a conversation in which he claimed he warned Vladimir Putin against invading Ukraine.
During a nearly two-hour conversation on Monday night with Elon Musk, broadcast live on the tech boss’ social media platform X, Trump made a series of bizarre claims.
Among them was his account of a conversation he allegedly had with Russian president Putin four years ago. He claimed he warned Putin off invading Ukraine - as he went on to do in February 2022, more than a year after US President Joe Biden had taken office.
“I told him things that I would do. And he said, ‘no way’, and I said, ‘way’,” Trump recounted.
But John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s presidency, says he believes this conversation was “imagination” from Trump, who is eager to “show that he’s the big alpha guy”.
In his conversation with Musk, the Republican presidential hopeful Trump described the US as “so bad right now” compared to when he was president. “We were respected,” he said.
Donald Trump explains how he dealt with Vladimir Putin:
— The American Conservative (@amconmag) August 13, 2024
"I said to Vladimir Putin, 'Don’t do it. You can’t do it, Vladimir. If you do it, it’s going to be a bad day. You cannot do it.’ And I told him what I’d do. He said, 'No way,' I said, 'Way.'"pic.twitter.com/lDQsjMXpTD
He said that had he still been in the White House, Israel “would have never been attacked - zero chance”.
On the long-running war in Ukraine, he told Musk and listeners: “I said to Vladimir Putin, I said, ‘don’t do it. You can’t do it, Vladimir. You do it, it’s going to be a bad day. You cannot do it’.
“And I told him things that I would do. And he said, ‘no way’, and I said, ‘way’. And, you know, it’s the last time we ever had the conversation. He would never have done. I got along well with him.”
Speaking to CNN on Wednesday Mr Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, dismissed the former presidents claims.
“I think Trump’s making that up,” he said. “He certainly didn’t have that conversation with Putin when I was in the White House. I don’t believe he had it before then. I can’t really speak to what came after.
“But this is another case of Trump making things up that it’s hard to prove or disprove.
“He can say that he had some private conversation at a dinner, at a G20 meeting, or something like that. I don’t think it happened, and I don’t think that there was really an occasion for Trump to have that conversation.”
The CNN anchor pointed out the language used by 78-year-old Trump - “no way” and “way’” - resembled more how teenagers might interact, than world leaders.
Mr Bolton, who has been privy to conversations Trump and Putin had in person and over the phone during Trump’s time in the White House, said: “I think that Putin essentially thinks that Trump is an easy mark.
“He doesn’t respect him, but he understands that using flattery with Trump could get him a long way.”
Trump has previously claimed that if re-elected, he would be able to end the long-running and complex war between Russia and Ukraine by sitting down with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
But Mr Bolton dismissed this idea, saying he believed if such a meeting happened, “Putin would take Trump to the cleaners to Ukraine’s detriment.”
“This is imagination on Trump’s part and it shows he really doesn’t understand what’s at stake here,” he said. “He knows very little history. He certainly understands next to nothing about the history of Ukraine and Russia.
“To me, the way here counts these conversations is one more demonstration that he’s just not fit to be president.”
Elsewhere in his chat with Musk, Trump praised Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un - all authoritarian strongmen - as at the "top of their game”. He also said he “got along well” with Kim Jong Un.
