Donald Trump drew fierce blowback on Tuesday for — once again — falsely blaming Ukraine for its invasion by Russia.
“I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well,” the president told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, after tentative peace talks were held between U.S. and Russia officials in Saudi Arabia.
Trump then mocked, though, Ukrainian complaints that its officials weren’t invited to the negotiating table.
“Today I heard, ‘Oh, oh, we weren’t invited,’” said Trump.
“Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years,” he added. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
Trump’s claim that Ukraine “should have never started” the conflict was quickly fact-checked on social media, where critics remembered how it was Russia — under orders of its President Vladimir Putin ― that invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, who is an expert on authoritarianism, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that Trump’s comments were “ghastly” and “morally disgusting.”
Social media users agreed and accused Trump of “echoing a Russian talking point.”