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Key points
- Donald Trump has argued that Ukraine should have made concessions to Russia in the months before the February 2022 attack.
- The US Republican presidential candidate said that even “the worst deal would have been better than what we have now”.
- Former Treasurer and US Ambassador Joe Hockey has said negative polls for Trump could be inaccurate.
Donald Trump has described Ukraine in bleak and sad terms, calling its people “dead” and the country itself “demolished.”
His comments on Wednesday raised further questions
Trump argued that Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the months before the February 2022 Russian attack, stating that even “the worst deal would have been better than what we have now.”
Trump, who has long been critical of US aid to Ukraine, repeatedly claims that Russia would never have invaded if he were president and that he . But rarely has he discussed the conflict in such detail.
Former Treasurer and US Ambassador Joe Hockey weighs in
Speaking to the National Press Club, former treasurer and US ambassador Joe Hockey said Trump remains “very competitive” in November’s US presidential election.
“Opinion polls have just been consistently wrong about Trump. Take Wisconsin; they underestimated Trump’s vote by 7 percent in 2016 and by 5 percent in 2020,” Hockey told the press club.
“I think for every 100 people who vote for Trump, four to five won’t admit it. They’re just going to do it,” he said, as reported by the Guardian.
Trump was the most influential man in American politics in a generation, with more than a third of voting Americans saying they would vote for him regardless of whether he was a Democrat, Republican or independent, Hockey said.
“You’ve never seen anyone with that influence,” he said.
There is “no doubt” that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris “won the battle of enthusiasm,” Hockey said, but as the first woman of color to run for president, she faced significant hurdles.
“There is still an element in the United States that is both misogynistic and racist, and because of voluntary voting it is very difficult to know what the turnout will be.”
While Harris tapped into a groundswell of people supporting abortion rights, Hockey argued that not everyone who stood up for Joe Biden in 2020 would stand up for her in November.
While Trump has made “absurd” comments, including unproven and racist claims about immigrants eating cats and dogs, he had cut through them, Hockey said.
American voters would think about illegal immigration — even if Trump’s claims were openly mocked — and that debate favored Republicans, who are generally seen as better communicators on immigration and the economy, Hockey said.
He also weighed in on speculation that Labor is considering changes to negative gearing,
He said any changes to negative gearing could impact the rental market.
“If you are going to tinker with negative gearing, do not first look at the housing stock, but at the impact on rents, because landlords who struggle to pay the interest on a loan against a home will increase rents.” he said.
Trump refuses to support the Ukrainian victory
Trump’s comments at an event in North Carolina billed as an economic speech follow a debate this month in which he pointedly refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war.
On Tuesday, Trump praised the prowess of Russia and its predecessor the Soviet Union, saying wars are “what they do.”
The Republican, who is notoriously sensitive to contempt, began his indictment of Ukraine by referencing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent criticism of Trump and running mate JD Vance.
Zelenskyy, who is visiting the US this week to attend the UN General Assembly, told The New Yorker that Vance was “too radical” in proposing that Ukraine surrender areas under Russian control and that Trump “doesn’t really know how to the war must stop. even if he may think he knows how.”
Trump said: “It’s something we need to have a quick discussion about because the president of Ukraine is in our country and he’s making little nasty insults about your favorite president: me.”
Trump depicted Ukraine as a country in ruins outside the capital Kiev, with a shortage of soldiers and population loss due to war dead and neighboring countries. He wondered whether the country has any bargaining chips left to negotiate an end to the war.
“Any deal – the worst deal – would have been better than what we have now,” Trump said.
“If they had made a bad deal, it would have been much better. They would have given up a little bit and everyone would still be alive and every building would be built and every tower would age another 2,000 years.
‘What deal can we make? It has been demolished. The people are dead. The country is in ruins.’
Zelenskyy tries to convince the US of the Ukrainian victory plan
Zelenskyy is presenting the White House with what he calls a victory plan for the war, which is expected to include a request to use Western long-range weapons to attack Russian targets.
Trump blamed the conflict on President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris. He said Biden was “instigating everything” by promising to help Ukraine defend itself rather than pushing the country to cede territory to Russia.
“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Trump said.
Strikingly, Trump did not attack Putin’s reasoning for launching the invasion, merely suggesting that Putin would not have started the war if Trump had been in power.
He said of Putin: “He is no angel.”
