Donald Trump made a series of bombshell statements in his latest Fox News interview, commenting on everything from Ukraine’s potential destruction to taking back the Panama Canal.
Mr Trump shared his views on a wide range of subjects facing the US during an interview with network host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. She questioned him about his views on Ukraine collapsing to Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as the future of the Panama Canal.
The US President continued to make outlandish claims while repeating some untrue statements about rooting out fraud from the US government. Here are seven bombshells from that interview…
Ukraine ‘may not survive’
When questioned about Ukraine’s potential downfall, Mr Trump said: “Well it may not survive anyway. But you know, we have some weaknesses with Russia, it takes two.” He added: “It was not gonna happen that war, and it happened so now we’re stuck with this mess.”
Mr Trump has suspended all military aid to Ukraine and stopped intelligence sharing with the country. NBC News has reported Mr Trump would not reinstate aid even if Ukraine signs a lucrative minerals deal.
Zelensky ‘is ungrateful’
On Sunday, Mr Trump again reiterated that Mr Zelensky was not “grateful” for US military aid and that he “took candy from a baby”. He also dodged a question about whether he was now backing Russia as the Kremlin orders more shelling of Ukraine
“He’s a smart guy, and he’s a tough guy,” Mr Trump said of Mr Zelensky. “He took money out of this country under [Joe} Biden, like candy from a baby.”
‘Nobody has been tougher on Russia than me’
The Republican leader hit out at claims he had been soft on Russia following his pivot away from Ukraine toward Moscow. Mr Trump has so far offered favourable terms to Russia in order to end the war, including no cessation of occupied territory in Ukraine and offering no security guarantee to Kyiv.
“Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump. Nobody,” he hit back. “The [Nord Stream 2] pipeline, I stopped it. The biggest job they’ve [Russia] ever done is the pipeline. Nord Stream 2. Nobody had even ever heard of it until I came along.
“They were building it happily, they were going to supply Germany and everyone else all over Europe. And what did I do? I stopped it.”
Mr Trump did oppose the construction of the pipeline along with numerous other European leaders and former US President Barack Obama. Construction on the pipeline began in 2018 and was completed in 2021, although concerns were raised during the process it would leave Europeans over reliant on Russian energy.
Panama Canal showdown
Mr Trump’s attention then turned to the Panama Canal, a lucrative trade shortcut that links up the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. While Americans completed construction of the canal in 1914 it was transferred to Panama as part of a deal arranged by former US President Jimmy Carter.
Since returning to the White House, Mr Trump has stated on several occasions that he wants to take the Panama Canal back. He has accused Panamanian authorities of ceding control of it to China, a point the government has strongly disputed – although Chinese companies do have a sizable presence in the Canal area.
“We shouldn’t have given it. We should never have given it,” Mr Trump said. “But we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama and now Panama has gone out and essentially given it, ceded it, to China.
“About a week ago, when they saw that I was serious about this, most of the signs were written in Chinese. Chinese all over the place, that wasn’t part of the deal. We’re taking the Panama Canal back.”
$5million ‘gold card’
Mr Trump wants to offer a so-called ‘gold card’ so anyone can buy a pathway to citizenship as long as they invest $5million (£3.9m). “I believe that Apple and all these companies that can’t get people to come out of college will come,” Mr Trump said.
“Think of it, you graduate number one in the school of finance or Harvard or Stamford and you get thrown out of the country you can’t stay more than one day, and they (companies) want to hire these people but they can’t. They’ve complained to me about it.”
Mr Trump’s gold card has been praised by those who are frustrated with what they view as unnecessary complexities with US immigration. But critics have highlighted money from the scheme will have little impact on bringing the US debt down, which stands at more than $36trillion, and that Russian oligarchs could qualify for it.
Recession and tax cuts
Mr Trump could not rule out financial hardships being piled on Americans as he spoke about rolling out a new set of tax cuts that he claims will drive growth in the US economy. He said: “We’re doing a series of incentives, tax incentives, and other things, a tax incentive, a tax bill is going to be very important.”
While billionaires are set to rake in huge amounts from the proposed tax bill, average Americans are projected to see little extra cash and the income disparity is only set to grow in the US. But alarmingly, Mr Trump would not rule out the possibility of a recession resulting from tariffs and trade wars with Mexico and Canada.
Rooting out Social Security fraud
The US President vowed to root out fraud from Social Security, a social insurance programme in the US, as well as for Medicare and Medicaid, which help with costs of seeing a doctor.
But to justify his claims, Mr Trump repeated debunked claims made by Elon Musk that dead people were benefiting from payments – with experts stating he has misunderstood data. Critics are concerned Mr Musk’s chainsaw approach to cutting what he views as government waste could have devastating effects for millions of Americans who rely on Social Security.
“I’m not going to touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,” Mr Trump said. “Now we’re gonna get fraud out of there. You know I talk about it all the time where you have people who are 250 years old [getting money], you know, tremendous fraud.
“We’re going to get the fraud out, and everyone wants us to get the fraud out. And therefore you’ll make it better. But we’re going to have tremendous growth.”
