Donald Trump’s son has hit out at Keir Starmer’s “awfully silly” decision to let Ukraine fire UK long-range missiles into Russia.
Eric Trump said he did not think “many good things could come out of that”, given the size of Vladimir Putin’s nuclear arsenal.
His comments, in an interview on GB News, came after British Storm Shadow missiles were used by Kyiv on Russian military targets.
Outgoing US president Joe Biden has also given Ukraine the go-ahead to use American long-range missiles for the same purpose.
Trump said: “I don’t know what [Biden] was thinking allowing them to use US missiles deep into Russian territory. Do I think it’s brilliant? No, I don’t think it’s brilliant.”
Asked by interviewer Ben Leo what he’d like to see the UK do, Trump said: “I don’t need to make these decisions. I can run the greatest properties in the world and not have to think about the missile strategy of the UK as it pertains to the largest nuclear superpower.
“I would urge everybody to remember that Russia is the largest nuclear superpower, tied exactly with the United States in terms of the amount of weapons that we each have.
“I think it’s an awfully silly thing when countries like the UK are suggesting that we start launching missiles deep into Russian territory. I don’t think many good things could come out of that, but that’s just my gut intuition.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump said his father wanted to “stop the death and destruction”, but refused to say which side he wants to win the war.
He said: “So often [Donald Trump] will get hit in the United States ‘you’re siding with Putin, you’re siding with Zelenskyy’. I’m not siding with anybody. You know what I’m siding with? I want to have young boys stop dying in dirty trenches for no reason whatsoever.”
Trump said his father would “stop sending US money overseas” and would instead use it to improve public services in America.
He said: “I want to invest in productive things, not death, destruction and 150 millimetre howitzer shells ripping through residential buildings and turning them into dust.
“On the top of my father’s priorities is ending the chaos, not just there but between Israel and Palestine, and Iran and so many other places that just want to seek death for no reason whatsoever.”