Mushy-Brained Trump Bizarrely Called His Pricey Civil Fraud Verdict A ‘Form Of Navalny’

Donald Trump waited a few days to say anything public about the mysterious death of Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny. It’s a surprise he said anything at all. The former U.S. president is good pals with the current Russian president and he doesn’t like to say anything untoward about him. So what did Trump say? He compared himself to who died in a Siberian penal colony, possibly because he was murdered, possibly for the reason authorities provided, namely “sudden death syndrome.” That made little sense, so he whipped out the comparison again, this time making even less sense.

Per The Hill, Trump participated in a Fox News town hall with his close friend Laura Ingraham. When asked about Navalny, Trump called him a “brave guy” for standing up to a notorious autocrat. He even seemed to suggest that Putin had him whacked.

“He went back, he could’ve stayed away,” Trump said about how Navalny sought treatment in Berlin after being mysteriously poisoned, only to return home. “And, frankly, probably would’ve been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country as opposed to going back in, because people thought that could happen, and it did happen. And It’s a horrible thing.”

Trump then tried to make what happened to Navalny and what’s happening to him — which is to say being held accountable for his actions in various courts of law — are the same thing.

“But it’s happening in our country, too,” Trump said. “We are turning into a communist country in many ways. And if you look at it. I’m the leading candidate, I get indicted—I never heard of being indicted before—I get indicted four times. I have eight or nine trials… all because of the fact that I’m in politics. They indicted me on things that are so ridiculous.”

Asked about his civil fraud trial, which ended with him having to pay $354.8 million (plus interest), Trump coined a new term, calling that “a form of Navalny.”

He added, “It is a form of communism or fascism.”

Ignoring his increasingly bizarre vernacular, it’s fascinating to watch Trump — a longtime cheerleader for Putin, who even when he’s admitted he’s done wrongdoing has downplayed its severity — attempting to exploit Navalny’s death while not angering the Russian president.

Elsewhere during the town hall, Ingraham did her best to try to keep him from saying crazy things (which is to say she repeatedly failed). At one point Trump said that when you do mail-in voting, “you automatically have fraud.” Ingraham sheepishly tried to remind him that lots of mail-in votes came from old people in Florida who voted for him, but he rolled right over that point, even if it might cost him an election. Again.

(Via The Hill)