Trump: US Needs President Who Can Go Toe to Toe With 'Fierce, Smart, Tough' Leaders Like Xi, Putin
© Sputnik / Владимир Астапкович
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The former president has repeatedly slammed his successor as “weak and stupid,” “unprepared” and “mentally unfit” for office, ramping up his criticisms amid the dramatic escalation of tensions with Russia and China over Ukraine and Taiwan and amid hints that he may make another bid for the presidency in 2024.
The United States is going to hell in a handbasket, and needs a “strong” leader at the helm, according to Donald Trump.
“Forget politics and the Republican and the Democrat stuff and the radical lefts and everything else. I want somebody that’s a great leader. I want somebody that can stand toe to toe with President Xi of China,” Trump said, speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“I said this the other day – that you could go all over Hollywood and try and get somebody to play the role of President Xi, the president of China. There is no actor like that, there’s nobody like that. These are fierce people, he’s a fierce man. I was a very good friend of his until Covid came in then I gave him up, I said ‘this is too much’,” Trump said.
The former president patted himself on the back over his administration’s trade policy, recalling that he’d made an “unbelievable” trade deal with China in 2020, and got rid of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which he dubbed “the worst trade deal ever made.”
“We need are sharpest people, because people like President Xi, like [French President Emmanuel] Macron, I could name so many of them, like [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin but of course right now he’s having a different kind of a spell. But let me tell you, these are fierce people. They’re smart, they’re tough, they don’t know about losing. Putin’s having a hard time, and be very careful what’s happening. He’s being handled incorrectly. These are very strong, smart people. And beyond Republican or Democrat, I wanna see somebody that’s great,” Trump said.
30 August 2022, 03:13 GMT
The business mogul said he would rather see Biden “succeed incredibly” as president, even if it meant a tougher election or even a loss for himself if he faced off against the Democrat.
“I wanna see what’s good for the country. If I had my choice of having this mess that we’re having there right now, this country is a mess. This country is not gonna to survive. The way it’s going right now it’s not gonna survive,” Trump said.
Trump’s well wishes are a change in tone for the former president, who continues to maintain that he was “robbed” of victory in the 2020 election, and who has attacked Biden relentlessly for the past year-and-a-half over his administration’s handling of the crisis at the border, inflation, ballooning gas prices, the crises in Ukraine and over Taiwan, and other domestic and foreign problems.
Trump has repeatedly hinted at making another run for office in 2024, in spite of threats of criminal prosecution by the Justice Department over the alleged illegal removal and handling of classified documents. Biden has already indicated that he plans to run again, in spite of behind-the-scenes consternation among Democrats that the president’s record-low approval rating is dragging the rest of the party down.
