Donald J. Trump was president of the United States for four years. He had the nuclear codes. He could have started a world war. He didn’t, but he could again, should he make good on teases that he may run again in 2024. (Or maybe a third presidential campaign will flame out as his Twitter clone seems to be doing.) So when he seemed to joke to a crowd about a hare-brained scheme to destroy Russia and then blame it on China, it may not have really been a joke.
As per CBS News, Trump spoke at a function in New Orleans on Saturday, during which he weighed in once more on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He’s already repeatedly praised president Vladimir Putin for his aggressive attempt at war. While he appears to have eased back on that, he did double down on another of his controversial stances: that NATO, the alliance of North American and European countries created in the wake of WWII, is bunk and the U.S. should pull out of it.
If that wasn’t bad enough, wait till you hear his plan to turn Russia and China on each other.
Trump mused to donors that we should take our F-22 planes, "put the Chinese flag on them and bomb the shit out" out of Russia. "And then we say, China did it, we didn't do, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch."
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 6, 2022
As first reported by The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, Trump told the crowd that America should “put the Chinese flag” on F-22 planes and “bomb the s*it out” out of Russia. “And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch.”
Trump could have simply be joking. But the thing about Trump is he doesn’t kid. His “jokes” are always about him getting a sense of how far he can push things, what he can get away with. Throw in his infamous ignorance of geography and world politics and there’s a chance, had he not lost re-election by over seven million votes, he could have been sitting in the Oval Office, floating this cartoonish plan to exasperated military leaders. Meanwhile, this must be heartbreaking news for one of Trump’s besties, Vladimir Putin.
(Via CBS News)