CNN aired newly uncovered audio of President Donald Trump telling donors during his 2024 presidential campaign that he once warned Russian President Vladimir Putin he would “bomb the shit out of Moscow” if Russia invaded Ukraine.
In the same recording, Trump claimed he gave a similar warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying he would “bomb the shit out of Beijing” if China attempted to take Taiwan.
“With Putin, I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m gonna bomb the shit out of Moscow,’” Trump said at the fundraiser, according to the leaked audio. “‘I’m telling you, I have no choice, the public.’ So he goes like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ He said, ‘No way.’ And I said, ‘Way.’”
Trump said Putin only “believed him 10%,” but added, “10% is all you need. In fact, 5% would have been OK, too. And we never had a problem.”
He recounted a similar exchange with Xi Jinping: “I said, you know, ‘If you go into Taiwan, I’m gonna bomb the shit out of Beijing.’ He thought I was crazy. He said, ‘Beijing? You’re gonna bomb…’ I said, ‘I have no choice. I got to bomb you.’” Trump said Xi didn’t believe him either, but estimated Xi’s belief was “around 10%.”
The audio was obtained by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf, the authors of the book 2024: How Trump Retook The White House And The Democrats Lost America. The excerpts were aired by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, and The Washington Post also reported on the comments.
Trump and his supporters argue the media is using clips like this to deliberately frame him as reckless and dangerous, while ignoring the broader context of his remarks. They say this is part of a broader pattern by left-leaning outlets to distort his words and damage his credibility ahead of the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election.
The remarks are consistent with Trump’s repeated claims that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine had he remained president. In 2022, during a speakerphone call with golf pro John Daly, Trump said he warned Putin, “We’re gonna hit Moscow,” and claimed Putin “sort of believed me, like 5%, 10%.” Trump added, “That’s all you need. He didn’t do this during the last four years because he knew he couldn’t.”
Also in 2022, Trump joked about disguising U.S. fighter jets with Chinese flags to bomb Russia, saying, “And then we say, ‘China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it,’ and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch.”
Trump publicly praised Putin in the early days of the Ukraine war, though he has recently shown frustration over Putin’s refusal to end the conflict.
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