Kurt Ohlson

WATCH: President Trump’s full comments to CBS’s Nikole Killion about the war between Russia and Ukraine, arguing the land Russia has taken from Ukraine has gotten “bigger and bigger all the time, week by week,” and they have an “unlimited supply of people” to keep going, but not Ukraine.... “Russia would like to get it done. I think that — and you know, Russia is a big machine. They just keep grinding forward, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve taken a very large piece of land, and, you know, you can say that Ukraine is doing well or poorly, but the land gets bigger and bigger all the time, week by week. It — just —they march forward. They just keep marching forward. They have an unlimited supply of people, whereas Ukraine, as you know, is — there’s a woman who’s, I guess, not exactly a very beautiful woman, nice woman, and she is on television recently talking about the fact that our men are gone. She’s a Ukrainian woman. Our men are gone. They’re lost. They’re dead. They’re in mental institutions. They’re walking around. They have no arms. They have no legs. In many cases, they’ve been hurt so badly; they’ve been just decimated, and it was very poignant. When I heard this, I said, boy, that’s some statement. And she said, Russia is a very big country. They can lose a lot of people in a war, and they have lost a lot of people. They lost 50 million people in the Second World War. They lose a lot of people, but they’re very big, and she said they have to settle this war. Look, Ukraine has lost a lot of people. Russia has lost a lot of people. Russia, though, is a giant nation. Ukraine is not. I can tell you this. We’ve been helping through Joe Biden originally, and he made a mistake because he should have done it through the European Union, and he should have been paid. European Union has quite a bit of money, although I have to tell you, they’re getting tired of spending it. But we gave $350 billion to Ukraine.” “And, you know, I insisted on getting something for that money, and we got a very big chunk of land in rare Earth and other things, if anybody remembers. Let’s see what that amounts to, but Ukraine has to want to settle this war. Zelenskyy has to want to settle this war, and if he doesn’t, I think it’s going to be a very bad thing. Look, we have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine. We’ve got nothing back other than high diesel. We have — we have given probably possibly more money to Ukraine than almost anybody over the years. Hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ve gotten nothing back, and the American taxpayers are tired of it. We want Zelenskyy to make a deal. He can make a deal. He could have made a deal two years ago when we had our little chat in the Oval Office. We had a now quite well-remembered chat with JD, myself, some others. Zelenskyy could have made a good deal then, could have made a much better deal then probably, possibly, than he could make now, but he’s going to have to want to make a deal, because I don’t think his people are going to stand for it any longer. They’ve been fighting a war. So, last month they lost 32,000 people between the both of them. They’re mostly soldiers, mostly young soldiers, some people in a town that got hit or whatever, but mostly young soldiers. It doesn’t affect us much. It doesn’t affect us in theory at all. We’re not involved. What affects me is to see that many souls lost so needlessly, so what I’d like to see is I’d like to make a deal.” “I’d like to see if they can make a deal. I thought, you know, I settled eight wars. I thought that would be the easiest one. The hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky is tremendous. I think that’s most of the reason they haven’t been able to make a deal, actually. But Ukraine has to want to make a deal because the United States has spent a fortune. Europe has spent a fortune. Europe is tired of it right now. They’re tired of it right now, and if they don’t make a deal, ultimately, it’s just going to get, in my opinion, it’s just really just going to get worse. You have a very big country in Russia. They have a lot of people. They have a lot of people to draw from. Ukraine does not have a lot of people to draw from, and it’s time to make a deal, and I say that — remember this though: We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.” “We’ve given incredible amounts of equipment, and military, primarily military equipment, but equipment of all kinds, and it’s time. I gave them javelins. When the stupid general for Russia — very stupid gentlemen — they had 1000 tanks riding up a concrete highway. They would have been in Ukraine in four hours going maximum tank speed — which is 48 miles an hour to be exact — nothing to stop them. The war would have been over in one day, and this very stupid general — I have no idea who he is. I doubt he’s still with us. I doubt he’s still living. He decided to hang a right onto the farmland and then take a left and go up to Kyiv, and rather than staying on the highway — the concrete highway, perfectly good highway where they were doing very nicely, would have been there in three and a half, four hours, and the whole war would have ended. He ended up getting stuck in the mud. It was like quicksand. They had — the night before, they had the heaviest rainfall they’ve had in ten years, and the land was soaking wet. It was like quicksand. This — I — most people don’t remember, but I do because it’s called war. You never know what happens. But he made a terrible decision, a legendarily bad decision. And the tanks got stuck. They couldn’t go forward. They couldn’t go back. They were dead, stuck, and they used the javelins. That’s the anti-tank weapon that I gave them. So, you know, the — the statement is Obama gave him sheets. I gave him javelins. So, I’ve helped Ukraine a lot, but it’s now time for them to end this war and stop all those young people from being killed.”