Former President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that World War III could erupt over Ukraine or Taiwan — and said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat of unleashing nuclear weapons made this “a very bad and very dangerous time.”
During an appearance on 77 WABC radio, Trump was asked by host John Catsimatidis what things “keep you up at night.”
“I think more than anything else, I think we could end up in World War III and it could be all of the horrible things that took place in Ukraine,” he said.
“Looks like it’s going to happen in China with Taiwan, as you know, and you see what’s going on over there.”
Trump also alluded to Putin’s speech last week in which he vowed to “use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people.”
“I think we’re at the most dangerous time maybe in, in many, many years — maybe ever — because of the power of nuclear,” Trump said.
“For a major nation that’s equal with us on nuclear power to be throwing around the word cavalierly, like nuclear, is, is a very bad time. A very bad time for this country and a very bad and a very dangerous time for the world.”
Trump also agreed with Catsimatidis’ suggestion that if he were still president, Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine earlier this year.
“I got along with him very well. I spoke to him. I understood him,” Trump said of the Russian leader. “He understood me, probably. But I understood him well, and he would have never done it.”
Without mentioning President Biden by name during the 20-minute, prerecorded interview, Trump also blasted last year’s botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan before launching into a series of attacks.
“A lot of things don’t make sense,” he said.
“Inflation doesn’t make sense. Totally unnecessary. That was caused by oil. That was caused by energy prices. Now it’s caused by everything. Now it’s beyond that.”
Trump also said that “open borders don’t make sense,” adding, “We have millions of people pouring into our country.”
“We have no idea where they’re from and many of them come from prisons from lots of other countries,” he said.
“They’re prisoners and they’re they’re hardened, dangerous people.”
After Catsimatidis brought up the subject of fentanyl — which helped fuel a record 107,622 overdose deaths in 2021 — Trump said, “I think what’s happened is the number is a lot higher than that.”
“I think it’s 250,000,” he said.
“And that doesn’t include all the families that are just totally destroyed because of the drugs pouring through the southern border.”
Trump added that “the only way you’re going to stop it is to have [the] death penalty for drug dealers.”
“If you look at countries where they have — like China, they have the death penalty — they have no drug problem,” he said.
“Singapore, they have the death penalty. They have no drug problem. You’re never gonna stop drugs unless you have the death penalty.”
Trump also said that New York City “is not the same place” it was due to rising crime, saying people are “afraid to go to a restaurant. Women are afraid to put on jewelry because it’s going to be stolen right off their necks.”
“I have so many friends that don’t want to go there anymore. And they’re leaving New York,” he told Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain.
“You’re saying you’re one of the people that are staying but people are leaving New York by the tens of thousands. And you have a lot of wealthy people leaving New York and they’re the ones that give it the money so that it can function.”
At another point, Trump said he hoped that “there’ll be a time when we can be proud instead of just being talking about how bad things are.”
“But our country has never been in a worse position than it is right now. And just look at the stock market,” he said.
“Tell your listeners to take a good look at their 401Ks, which are down in some cases 50% from what they were two years ago. So, you know, it’s, it’s very sad to see what’s happening to our country.”
Trump also lashed out at state Attorney General Letitia James — who last week filed a $250 million civil fraud suit against him and his three eldest children — calling her a “disaster” and blaming her for surging crime across the state.
“She spends years going after me that she said, oh, I maybe misrepresented to banks, which frankly, I didn’t,” he said.
“And in the meantime, we have murderers going down, walking down the street. It’s just horrible. She’s a horror show. She’s so bad. She doesn’t care about violent crime. She doesn’t care about anything except trying to use Trump’s name to get elected.”
James’ office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.