'Oh, God...': Biden on whether Trump would have tipped off Putin about coup plan
Former US President Donald Trump is a longtime admirer of Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday claimed that his administration knew about the impending rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin “ahead of time”. In what Fox News called a ‘softball interview' with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Biden briefly talked about the last week's revolt against Putin by his former aide and mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and a dramatic U-turn within 24 hours.
When asked about what the US knew about the Russian revolt, Biden responded, “We knew things ahead of time,” but said he couldn't say what.
Wallace followed up, “Did you worry that Trump might have tipped him off, had he still been president?” She was apparently asking whether Trump would have warned Russian President Vladimir Putin of the mercenary leader's plans for the rebellion against Russia's military leaders.
“Oh, God,” Biden said. "I don't know. I don't think about that very often."
As president, former US President Donald Trump developed friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Thursday, Trump said the Russian President has been "somewhat weakened" by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.
"You could say that he's (Putin) still there, he's still strong, but he certainly has been I would say somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people," Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview.
If Putin were no longer in power, however, "you don't know what the alternative is. It could be better, but it could be far worse," he said.
Putin witnessed one of the biggest challenges as Russian premier after the Wagner Group chief launched a mutiny against the top leadership. Prigozhin claimed that the armed mutiny was to save his group after being ordered to place it under the command of the defence ministry, which he has cast as ineffectual in the war in Ukraine.
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