Russia’s Vladimir Putin has revealed an apparently previously unreported conversation with Donald Trump in which he claims the then-American president let his jealousy of Joe Biden get the best of him in 2020.
In an interview with state-controlled media released Wednesday, Putin appeared to suppress a smirk as he recalled the “curious” conversation when asked if expressing a preference for Biden to win in the 2024 vote could be seen as “meddling” in U.S. elections.
Reiterating Moscow’s oft-repeated claim that the Kremlin is not interfering in American elections “in any way,” Putin said that Trump, “in the last year of his work as president… admonished me for the fact that I like Biden.”
“This was more than four years ago. He told me that in one conversation: ‘You want him to win.’ Excuse me, I’ll say it like he did, it’s just direct speech, ‘for Sleepy Joe to win.’ He told me this when he was still president,” he said.
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Putin went on to say he was then surprised to see Trump being criticized for having the support of the Kremlin, claiming it was “complete nonsense.”
It was not immediately clear where and when Trump allegedly brought up “Sleepy Joe” with the Russian leader, or why Trump would have been discussing the Kremlin’s desires for the 2020 U.S. election. Last month, Putin raised eyebrows by explicitly speaking out in favor of Biden for the 2024 election, telling a reporter, “He is a more experienced, predictable person, an old-school politician.”
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