Trump defends praise of Putin, makes strongest hint yet of a run for president in 2024

This is the latest in a string of thinly veiled hints about his political plans, but Trump has stopped short of officially declaring his candidacy, which would trigger more stringent requirements for how he raises, spends and reports funds.

The former president condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine without denigrating Putin directly, saying it’s “appalling and it’s an outrage and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur.” Trump mocked President Biden and NATO allies for punishing Russia with sanctions, saying Putin was “playing Biden like a drum.” He bragged that Putin did not invade any countries during his term and said this invasion would never have happened “if our election was not rigged” — a reference to his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“He understood me and he understood that I didn’t play games,” Trump said of the Russian president. “Someday I’ll tell you exactly what we talked about, and we talked about it, he did have an affinity, there’s no question about it, for Ukraine. … I said, ‘Better not let it happen.’”

“This is genius,” Trump said in that interview. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. … He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re going to go out and we’re going to go in and we’re going to help keep peace.’ You’ve got to say that’s pretty savvy.”

Trump defended labeling Putin as “smart” during his Saturday night speech.

“The problem is not that Putin is smart — which, of course he’s smart — but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb,” Trump said to applause. “Dumb. So dumb.”

The hotel ballroom where the conference was held was full for the first time all weekend, and the crowd cheered when the former president alluded to running again, cuing chants of “four more years.” When Trump said America had “lost its self confidence” under Biden, a man in the crowd started a chant of “Let’s go, Brandon” — a phrase that is code for a profane expression against Biden.

Talk of a third Trump candidacy was everywhere at CPAC, with attendees sporting “Trump 2024” hats and vendors selling flags for a 2024 campaign.

Before Trump took the stage, speaker after speaker urged the ex-president to run and predicted a victory over any Democrat. T.W. Shannon, a former Oklahoma state legislator and potential U.S. Senate candidate, said that Trump had taught conservatives hard lessons that would “prepare us for the next time that he’s president.”

Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host, compared Trump to Winston Churchill and said that conservatives would “Make America great again, again” in 2024. Jack Posobiec, a promoter of the “Pizzagate” false conspiracy theory who works with the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, said that any 2024 Democratic nominee would be a “sacrificial lamb” in the year of a Trump comeback.

The Federal Election Commission earlier this month faced a complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that seeks to compel the commission to declare Trump a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The complainant, John Anthony Castro, is a declared candidate for the Republican nomination and argues that he is suffering “competitive injury in the form of a diminution of votes and fundraising.”

Brett Kappel of law firm Harmon Curran, an expert on campaign finance laws, said he doesn’t think the comments Saturday night are “enough for Trump to legally become a candidate.”

“He has to make an unambiguous definitive statement,” Kappel said.

The reaction in the ballroom was more muted when Trump insisted that Putin and Russia were paying “no price” for the invasion, with faint applause when he suggested that sanctions wouldn’t stop Russia from taking control of Ukraine. There were cheers when Trump, like other people who’d spoken at the conference, praised the Ukrainians and their president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump called Zelensky a “brave man,” then quickly pivoted to talking about the 2019 impeachment, in which Zelensky was a central figure. At the time, Zelensky said he hadn’t felt pressured during a phone call in which Trump conditioned U.S. military aid on Ukraine digging up dirt on Biden. The House impeached Trump on “abuse of power” charges for trying to solicit help from a foreign government against a political foe.

During his speech Saturday night, Trump also criticized Democrats for wanting to help Ukraine secure its borders against Russia but not supporting Republican plans to tighten security at the U.S. border.

“We feel for Ukraine in so many ways,” Trump said. “But Ukraine’s sovereignty must be defended at all costs, they say, even while destroying our borders, surrendering our sovereignty.”

Not all CPAC attendees took kindly to Trump’s musings on the Russian invasion. “Trump needs to say less,” said Dmitry Didovicher, a software engineer who immigrated to the United States from Kyiv after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Ahead of his remarks, Trump told reporters that the war in Ukraine could “spread throughout the world.”

“This could be a world war,” he said. “Something has to be done.”

Asked what specifically should be done, Trump said there were things to be done “that would end it very quickly,” but he wasn’t going to talk about them to the press.