Donald Trump repeated his praise of Vladimir Putin as “smart” and called American leaders “dumb” as Russia pressed on with its widescale invasion of Ukraine in the face of fierce resistance.
As world leaders united to condemn the Russian president and impose sweeping sanctions on his government and oligarch allies, Mr Trump doubled down on earlier comments about Mr Putin.
“Yesterday reporters asked me if I thought President Putin is smart. I said of course he’s smart,” he told the crowd at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
“The problem isn’t Putin is smart — which of course he is smart — it’s that our leaders are dumb,” he said, adding that Nato nations “are not so smart, they are looking the opposite of smart.”
Mr Trump went on to blame the Biden administration for Russia’s decision to invade its neighbour, an attack that was justified by Mr Putin’s false claims that Ukraine was run by “drug-addicted, neo-Nazi” leaders.