Donald Trump praised his “good friend” Vladimir Putin during a rambling speech at a campaign event in Iowa on Saturday.
Mr Trump repeated one of his favourite stories to the audience in Waterloo, claiming that the Russian president would not have invaded Ukraine on his watch.
“I said, ‘Vladimir, you and I are friends. We’re good friends. But if you go in, we’re gonna hit real hard’,” Mr Trump said.
“He said, ‘No way you would do that, there’s no way’. I said, ‘Way’,” drawing a laugh from the crowd as he appeared to mimic a line from the 1992 Mike Myers comedy Wayne’s World.
Elsewhere, Mr Trump boasted of appointing the three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v Wade while baselessly accusing Democrats of wanting to “execute” babies.
The former president went after his likely opponent in the 2024 presidential election Joe Biden as “weak”, after his administration said it would resume construction of a wall along sections of the southern border.
Donald Trump hams it up at a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Saturday— (Reuters)
“When foreign countries watch all of this they can’t believe it. The stupidity of Afghanistan is one of the reasons that Putin went in [to Ukraine] and that China is so aggressive all of a sudden.”
He also attacked New York attorney general Letitia James, who is suing the Trump Organisation in a civil court trial for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties.
Trump today on Putin and Ukraine when he was president: “I said, Vladimir, you and I are friends. We’re good friends. But if you go in, we’re gonna hit real hard. I can’t tell you what I told him.” pic.twitter.com/dtbJq38mkK
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 7, 2023
He described Ms James as “evil”, adding: “She goes after Trump, but she doesn’t go after murderers.”
The GOP presidential primary frontrunner also repeated bogus claims that US taxpayer money had funded Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel.
“We agreed to free up $6bn, that is an absolute disaster. I would not be at all surprised if part of that tremendous wealth that they just accumulated went into this level of aggression.”
Mr Trump was holding two campaign events in Iowa on Saturday, 100 days before state Republicans will hold the first-in-nation caucuses on 15 January.
His closest rival Ron DeSantis was campaigning in the state on Saturday, while former vice-president Mike Pence and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson also held events.
