Former President Donald Trump bashed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as “ignorant and foolish” on Wednesday for his attitude toward Russia, a posture Trump believes “makes it impossible to negotiate peace.”
At the top of the video, Trump referenced DeSantis’s comments from an interview last week with Fox Nation’s Piers Morgan. DeSantis told the British commentator that Russia is “basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons,” a sentiment that echoed the rhetoric of failed 2012 Republican presidential candidate Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and failed 2008 GOP presidential candidate late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), as Breitbart News reported.
Statesmanship and Peacemaking requires seriousness, sophistication, and historical perspective, not mindless talking points and shallow Washington bromides. Sadly, some people’s worldviews are too simple-minded to make peace. pic.twitter.com/smakAKtRqt
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) March 29, 2023
Trump said this kind of approach “is exactly the kind of simple-minded thinking that has produced decades of failed diplomacy and ultimately war.”
He added that the stance belittles Russia and shows a lack of respect for the nation’s culture and history:
Those such as Mitt Romney and Ron DeSantis, very much alike, who insist on arrogantly treating Russia as deeply inferior to the other nations of the world with no history, or culture, or pride, are not only ignorant and foolish but their attitude makes it impossible to negotiate peace, absolutely impossible.
Under my administration we were tough on Russia… but we also demonstrated respect for Russia and the Russian people. We demonstrated understanding for Russian history and the fact Russia lost over 20 million lives in World War II; they were fighting with us.
He also referenced additional comments from DeSantis’s Morgan interview, in which he dubbed Putin a “war criminal” who should be “held accountable” for the Ukraine invasion.
“This kind of neo-con rhetoric mocking Russia’s nuclear weapons, along with implying that Putin must be tried and presumably executed as a war criminal, only increases the chances of deadly nuclear escalation,” Trump said.
DeSantis’s position on Russia and Putin displays a “lack of depth, a lack of seriousness, and a lack of sophistication on the subtleties and complexities of foreign policy,” in the 45th president’s view.
Trump declared that Americans “need a statesman and peacemaker in the White House” and that he is the lone candidate who could prevent a third world war.
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