Trump, who maintained chummy relations with Vladimir Putin as president, compared himself to the Russian political dissident
Donald Trump doubled down on his comparison to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died on Friday in an arctic penal colony and is widely believed to have been murdered by the government of Vladimir Putin.
When speaking at a Fox News town hall on Tuesday evening, Trump grotesquely likened a civil fraud judgment against him to Navalny’s death. When asked by Laura Ingraham how he would come up with the $364 million in penalties, plus interest, in a New York judge’s Feb. 16 verdict, the ex-president replied: “It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism.”
Earlier in the town hall, Trump called Navalny “a very brave guy because he went back,” but said “he could have stayed away, and frankly, probably would have been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country.”
Then, Trump — who maintained chummy relations with Putin during his presidency and has repeatedly touted his friendship with the Russian dictator — attempted to paint himself and his legal woes as a sign of political persecution, a tactic he has built a penchant for.
“And it’s a horrible thing, but it’s happening in our country too. We are turning into a communist country in many ways, and if you look at it, I’m the leading candidate,” he moaned during Tuesday’s event. “I never heard about being indicted before. I got indicted four times, I have eight or nine trials all because of the fact that I’m in politics. They indicted me for things that are so ridiculous.”
The 2024 GOP frontrunner, who faces 91 criminal charges, has claimed without an ounce of evidence that his legal troubles are part of a conspiracy to keep him from winning a second term in the White House.
Trending
His town hall remarks follow a bizarre President’s Day rant, where Trump began to draw out this false parallel in a Truth Social post in which he wrote: “Biden:Trump::Putin:Navalny”
Despite Trump’s praise of and self-comparisons to Navalny, the former president has stopped short of condemning Putin for his death — as President Joe Biden and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley (Trump’s lone-remaining Republican challenger) have done.
