OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Social media lit up after the posting of a phone call involving former President Donald Trump and PGA pro John Daly regarding foreign policy as it pertained to handling Russia and China.
A snippet of the conversation which took place over speakerphone was posted on Twitter by Tim Reilly of Golf.com.
Trump’s remarks came against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine and saber-rattling by China in regards to Taiwan, which Beijing considers not a sovereign nation but rather just a renegade province of the mainland.
Trump suggested that he told Putin if the Kremlin leader got out of line that Moscow would be attacked.
Trump discussing Russia with John Daly on speaker phone is something else
via nopopsgolf pic.twitter.com/hdy6jbdvvp
— Tim Reilly (@LifeOfTimReilly) March 4, 2022
“They’re all saying, ‘Oh, he’s a nuclear power’ it’s like they’re afraid of him,” Trump said. “You know, he was a friend of mine, I got along great with him, I say, ‘Vladimir, if you do it, we’re hitting Moscow’ I said, ‘we’re gonna hit Moscow’ and’, like 5 percent, 10 percent, that’s all you need,” noting that a bluff was a sufficient deterrent.
“He never did it during my time, John, you know,” Trump noted further.
“We’re all talking about it, he didn’t do this during the last four years because he knew he couldn’t,” Trump added, which appeared to be a thinly veiled attempt at suggesting Biden is viewed as weak and ineffective by the Russian president.
Daly then went on to note that China did not ‘misbehave’ while Trump was in office, either.
“It’s funny how [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] didn’t bother you either,” said Daly.
“Yeah, no, Xi didn’t bother me. I told him the same thing, you, that’ll be next, you know, that’s gonna be next, Taiwan will be next, you won’t have any computer chips, they’ll blow them off the face of the Earth,” the 45th president noted further.
The call with Daly received quite a bit of attention, but so, too, did remarks Trump made at a GOP donor event in New Orleans on Saturday.
Trump was incredulous that European countries and the U.S. had not done more to assist the Ukrainians and suggested that millions of people are being impacted by the fighting.
“Are all of these nations going to stand by and watch perhaps millions of people be slaughtered as the onslaught continues?” he said, according to a source. “At what point do countries say, ‘No, we can’t take this massive crime against humanity?’ We can’t let it happen. We can’t let it continue to happen.”
He then joked that the U.S. should “put the Chinese flag” on F-22 fighter jets and “bomb the s***” out of Russia.
“And then we say, China did it,” the former president noted, causing laughter among the attendees, the source said. “Then they start fighting with each other, and we sit back and watch.”
Trump also did directly lashed out at Biden’s strategy and foreign policy thus far according to the source, reported by CBS News.
“We have to have Biden stop saying that — and this is for everyone to hear — that we will not attack Russia ever because they are a nuclear power, right?” he told the crowd. “You know who is saying this? Okay, whether it’s fact or fiction, ‘We will not attack Russia. You see, they are a nuclear power.’ Oh, thanks for telling us.”
In addition, Trump also dropped another hint that he plans to run again for president in 2024.
“The vote counter is oftentimes more important than the candidate and the Republicans are going to have to get a lot tougher,” he said, according to the report.
“We will see a Republican president reclaim that magnificent White House in 2024,” he said. “I wonder who that might be.”
