Excerpts from Trump's interview with Time Magazine, Russia, Putin, Ukraine, Israel etc
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I’m going to shift to foreign policy. Have you spoken to Vladimir Putin since your election?
I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate.
If Ukraine doesn’t agree to a peace deal that you have said you will broker, will you cut military, humanitarian, and intelligence assistance to them?
The reason that I don’t like to tell you this is that, as a negotiator, when I sit down and talk to some very brilliant young people: young, young, young, young. Compared to me, you’re very young. But when I talk to people—when I start I think I have a very good plan to help, but when I start exposing that plan, it becomes almost a worthless plan.
Will you commit to protecting Ukrainian sovereignty, though, from Russia?
I would like to see Ukraine—okay, ready? You have to go back a little bit further. It would have never happened if I were president. Would have never happened—
But it has happened. So the question people want to know is, Would you abandon Ukraine?
It makes it so bad. And I had a meeting recently with a group of people from the government, where they come in and brief me, and I'm not speaking out of turn, the numbers of dead soldiers that have been killed in the last month are numbers that are staggering, both Russians and Ukrainians, and the amounts are fairly equal. You know, I know they like to say they weren't, but they're fairly equal, but the numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering.It's crazy what's taking place. It's crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they're doing not only missiles, but they're doing other types of weapons. And I think that's a very big mistake, very big mistake. But the level, the number of people dying is number one, not sustainable, and I'm talking on both sides. It’s really an advantage to both sides to get this thing done.
The question that many Americans and many people around the world have is, Will you abandon Ukraine?
I want to reach an agreement, and the only way you're going to reach an agreement is not to abandon. You understand what that means, right?
Right. Well, no, tell me.
Well, I just said it. You can't reach an agreement if you abandon, in my opinion. And I disagree with the whole thing, because it should have never happened. Putin would have never invaded Ukraine if I were president for numerous reasons. Number one, they drove up the oil price. When they drove up the oil price, they made it a profit-making situation for him, the oil price should have been driven down. If it was driven down, you wouldn't have had it wouldn't have started just for pure economic reasons. But when it hits $80, $85, and $90 a barrel. I mean, he made, he made a lot of money. I'm not saying it's a good thing, because he's also suffered, but they are moving forward.You know, this is a war that's been—this is a tragedy. This is death that's far greater than anyone knows. When the real numbers come out, you're going to see numbers that you're not going to believe.
Well, another war with a high death toll is happening in the Middle East. You reportedly told Prime Minister Netanyahu that you wanted him to end the war in Gaza before you took office. What did he say?
I think that, before I talk about that, I think that the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. Okay, I just want to say that up front. The Middle East is going to get solved. The Middle East has been—it's a horrible thing. October 7 was a horrible thing. Everyone is forgetting conveniently about October 7, but that was a horrible day for the world, not for Israel, for the world. And I think the Middle East is going to get—as we speak, things are happening very productively on the Middle East. I think the Middle East is going to get solved. I think it's more complicated than the Russia-Ukraine, but I think it's, it’s, it’s easier to solve.
Did Netanyahu give you assurances about when he would end the war?
Um, I don’t want to say that, but I think he feels confident that—I think he feels very confident in me, and I think he knows I want it to end. I want everything to end. I want, I don't want people killed, you know? I don't want people from either side killed, and that includes whether it's Russia, Ukraine, or whether it's the Palestinians and the Israelis and all of the, you know, the different entities that we have in the Middle East. There's so many different entities. But I don't want people killed.
https://time.com/7201565/person-of-the-year-2024-donald-trump-transcript/