Leaked audio tapes of Donald Trump have him saying much more than him bragging about telling Vladimir Putin he would 'bomb the s**t out of Moscow' if Russia invaded Ukraine.
The conversation is believed to have taken place at a fundraiser during Trump's election campaign last year where he privately told donors that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he had been US president because of the threat he made to Putin.
Trump has long insisted that certain global events would not have occurred had he been in the White House, including the invasion of Ukraine, with him claiming nobody would have dared try such things with him in charge.
More recently he voiced some frustration with the Russian dictator, claiming Putin was throwing 'a lot of bulls**t at us'.
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The audio tapes were published by CNN and had Trump speaking on all sorts of subjects beyond threatening Putin, including him making his bomb threat to another country as well.
"We're gonna bomb the s**t out of Moscow"
The line everyone is talking about is Donald Trump saying he told Putin he'd bomb Moscow should Russia invade Ukraine.
He didn't say when the conversation took place and whether it occurred while Trump or Biden was in the White House.
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In the leaked audio Trump was heard saying that he told Putin 'we really like each other but if you go into Ukraine I'm gonna bomb the s**t out of Moscow'.
He added: "With Putin, I said, ‘if you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the s**t out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice. The public wants it. The public. So he goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you'. He said 'no way' and I said 'way'.
"The truth is he believed me 10 percent, he believed me 10 percent."
While Trump acted like he was recounting a past conversation with Putin, Russia has since responded to insist that no such discussion took place.
"The fact is that there were no telephone conversations then," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said to Russian state news agency Tass.
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"After all, we are talking, as far as I understand, about the period when Trump was not yet the president of the United States.
"Whether this is fake or not, we also do not know. There are a lot of fakes now. Often, there are many more fakes than true information. And we always proceed from this when we analyse certain news."
"If you go into Taiwan we're gonna bomb the s**t out of Beijing"
He then went on to describe visiting China, boasting that 'they greeted me with 100,000 troops' and saying they were all the same height so 'you could play billiards on top of their hats'.
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Describing it as 'the most perfect thing I've ever seen', Trump said that he told Xi Jinping the same thing he'd told Putin.
"I said the same thing to them, I said if you go into Taiwan we're gonna bomb the s**t out of Beijing. He thought I was crazy," Trump told the donors at a fundraiser.
Trump claimed that Xi also believed him '10 percent', adding that 'we never had a problem'.
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"October 7th woulda never happened"
In addition to his claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened if he was president, Trump also claimed in the leaked tapes that a Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, 2023 wouldn't have been carried out.
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The response from Israel has been devastating for the people of Gaza, who are suffering through a devastating humanitarian crisis.
Earlier this year trump posted AI generated videos suggesting he wanted to turn Gaza into a beach resort.
He said: "So Ukraine's another one that woulda never happened, October 7th woulda never happened, Ukraine woulda never happened."
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"Any student that protests, I would throw them out of the country"
Another clip of leaked audio of Trump speaking to donors had him saying he'd be much harsher on student protesters.
"One thing I’d do is any student that protests, I would throw them out of the country, you know there are a lot of foreign students," Trump said to applause from the room.
He said students were 'devastated' to be deported from the US and that 'those people made a big mistake'.
"Throw them out of the country, I think that will stop it, but you may have to go further than that. But it has to be stopped now, it's a major revolution taking place."
Trump promised that if they helped him get elected he would 'set that movement back 25, 30 years', which drew more applause from the room.
"A million dollars is not a lot"
In another clip Trump was telling people that he wanted them to donate more money to his campaign and described an encounter where he got one person to increase their funding from one million to 25 million dollars.
"I said 'a million dollars is not a lot, you're worth five, six billion dollars, we've got much richer than that', I said 'you're poor compared to some'.
"I said 'you're worth five or six billion dollars and you talk about a million dollars', I'm gonna have lunch? I'm not having lunch, you've got to make it 25 million."
Trump then told the room he managed to convince the donor to up his offer to what Trump was asking for his campaign, drawing more applause from the audience.
He went on to say he told companies that donated a few million dollars to the Republicans 'I'd be really happy at 25 but I'd be much happier at 50', saying they then asked him 'what about 35'.
"The welfare people will always vote for Democrats"
Attempting to persuade people to donate more to his campaign, Trump talked about the money going towards his opponents and who would be voting for them.
He said: "The unions give big money, the civil service stuff gives big money, and they have the advantage of welfare.
"The welfare people will always vote for Democrats, you can't change it.
"The one thing that I have to say to my Jewish friends: You’ve got to get them to start voting Republican."
Topics: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Russia, China, US News
Joe Harker