President Trump privately crowed to a group of donors last year that Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine “never would’ve happened” under his watch — because he warned Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin that he would “bomb the sh— out of Moscow,” according to leaked audio.
“With Putin, I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the sh-t out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice,’” Trump, now 79, could be heard saying in a clip published by CNN. “And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10%.”
Trump also said that he had an “almost identical conversation” with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the prospect of an invasion of Taiwan by Beijing.
“Then I’m with President Xi of China … I said the same thing to them. I said, you know, ‘If you go into Taiwan, I’m gonna bomb the sh— out of Beijing.’ He thought I was crazy. He said, ‘Beijing? You’re gonna bomb?’ I said, ‘I have no choice. I gotta bomb you.’”
“And he didn’t believe me either,” Trump added. “And 10% is all you need. In fact, 5% would have been OK too.”
Fundraiser attendees could be heard laughing at Trump’s retelling of the threats to America’s two great adversaries.
The former and future president used the riff to rip into critics who accused him of being “in the pocket of Russia” during his first term and harked back to how he fought against the Nord Stream pipeline, which allowed natural gas to flow between Russia and Germany.
The audio was obtained by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf for their book “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” which hit bookshelves Tuesday.
Trump has repeatedly alluded in public to making a dramatic threat against Putin to deter an invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
“It [Ukraine] was the apple of his eye; he used to talk about it. But I said, ‘You’re not going in,’ and he wasn’t going in,” Trump recounted at a town hall in Pennsylvania last year.
In response to a request for comment Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told The Post that “as President Trump has said time and again, Russia never dared invade Ukraine when he was in office.”
“It happened only when Biden was in office. Thanks to this president’s leadership, America is once again the leader of the free world, and peace through strength is restored,” she added. “President Trump won on an America First agenda, and he is working hard to implement the mandate the American people gave him.”
Revelations about the leaked audio come as the president’s tone on Russia and Putin has soured dramatically over recent weeks. Early on in his second administration, Trump had aggressively sought to smooth things over with Moscow and broker an end to the bloody war in Ukraine.
But last week, following his July 3 call with Putin, Trump admitted to being “disappointed” with the Russian strongman.
“It just seems like he wants to go all the way and just keep killing people,” the president said.
On Tuesday, during his cabinet meeting, Trump reiterated his intention to send Ukraine more weaponry to fend off the Russian invaders before lashing out at Putin himself.
“A lot of people are dying and it should end,” the president vented. “We get a lot of bulls— thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
“The Ukrainians were brave but I will say we gave them the best equipment ever made,” Trump said at another point, re-upping his intention to give Kyiv more weapons and other materiel.
Trump has also expressed openness to a bipartisan sanctions package that could come up for a vote in the Senate in the coming days, and includes a 500% tariff on imports from countries that purchase energy from Russia, among other steps intended to tighten the screws on Moscow.
In addition to the leaked conversation about threatening to bomb Moscow and Beijing, audio obtained by the “2024” authors shows Trump bragging about his ability to pressure his rich allies to donate to his campaign and teasing plans to deport student protesters.
“One thing I’d do is any student that protests, I would throw them out of the country,” Trump said of his approach to antisemitic protesters during remarks at a different fundraiser. “Those people made a big mistake. Throw them out of the country, and I think that will stop it.”
“If you get me elected, we will set that movement back 25 to 30 years,” he assured one donor who was nervous that those protesters would one day be “running the country.”
In another clip, Trump was heard complaining that “the welfare people will always vote for Democrats.”
“The unions give big money, the civil service stuff gives big money, and they have the advantage of welfare,” he added. “The one thing that I have to say to my Jewish friends: You’ve got to get them to start voting Republican.”
