הקלטה שהודלפה: טראמפ אומר שאיים להפציץ את מוסקבה ואת בייג'ינג ובכך הרתיע את רוסיה ואת סין בעת כהונתו הראשונה

A newly released audio recording reveals President Trump saying he threatened to bomb Russia if it invaded Ukraine. He also says he made a similar warning to China that he would bomb Beijing if it invaded Taiwan. Here's a soundbite aired by CNN. Take a listen. If Putin has said, if you go in to Ukraine, we're going to bomb this, then I'm not scared. I'm telling you, I have to introduce the public once, the public. So he goes like, I don't believe you. I said, he said, no way. And I said, wait. And then he goes like, I don't believe you. The truth is he believed me 10 percent. I said, I'm with President Xi of China, but I said the same thing to him. I said, you know, if you go into Taiwan, I'm going to bomb this, that, Beijing. He thought I was crazy. I said, I have no choice, I said, I'm going to bomb you. And he didn't believe me except 10 percent. And 10 percent is all you need, in fact, 5 percent would have been OK, too. And we never had a problem, we would have never had a problem. The recording was made at a 2024 fundraiser where Trump was campaigning for a second term. Since its release on Wednesday, the White House has not commented on the matter. We spoke to retired Marine Colonel and Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy Grant Newsham for his insights on the matter. You know, as a practical matter, one does have to ask, well, did Putin invade Ukraine when Donald Trump was president the first time? The answer is no. Did Xi Jinping do anything to Taiwan? No. Had he sort of stepped up his aggression against Taiwan when Mr. Trump was president the first time? Well, not like he has now. So, Mr. Trump was right about sort of the end results and whether or not he actually said that to Xi and Putin, I don't know, but he could have used language that was forceful enough to get their attention. And there is, when it comes to China, of course, there's always has been an issue of what would America do if Taiwan was attacked? And it probably depends on the administration, what their inclinations are, how busy they are elsewhere, what other problems they have, and even just how much backbone they have. Some administrations don't have very much, and the Chinese know it. You see it in their behavior. But when Trump was in the office, he had a very good team, and they were the first ones in my lifetime that the Chinese were really scared of. I think the Chinese actually are convinced that we would, in fact, fight to defend Taiwan. A Kremlin spokesperson said he couldn't confirm or deny the clip's authenticity, adding, quote, there is a lot of fake news nowadays. On the other hand, China appears to be censoring the recording from public view and has yet to issue an official response.