Donald Trump won’t say how many times he’s spoken with Russian president Vladimir Putin since leaving the White House almost four years ago—and when asked twice, directly, he wouldn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
The former president’s remarks—made during an occasionally combative interview with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait on Tuesday afternoon—also rehashed some of Trump’s favorite talking points on foreign trade, immigration and his opponent, Kamala Harris.
But Trump’s failure to answer two particular questions might have spoken louder than anything he actually said during the hour-long engagement. On the subject of Putin, Trump declined to comment on whether he’d spoken with the Russian president since leaving office—then added that it would be “a smart thing” if he had done so.
“If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing in terms of a country,” he said.
Minutes later, Micklethwait then asked the former president whether he would commit to “respecting and encouraging a peaceful transfer of power” if he lost the November election, given the events of January 6. Trump did not answer the question, instead insisting that there had been a peaceful transfer of power after the last election.
“Come on, President Trump,” Micklethwait fired back, to boos from the audience. “You had a peaceful transfer of power compared to Venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power for a long time.” After a moment of back-and-forth, he then tried to ask again.
“This is a man who has not been a big Trump fan over the years,” Trump replied, addressing the crowd directly and ignoring Micklethwait’s question.
That question isn’t purely hypothetical, however—and it’s growing weightier as Election Day draws near. Speaking to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Trump suggested that the military or the National Guard should be mobilized against “radical-left lunatics” on November 5—a comment his campaign now says was meant to refer to foreign terrorists.
But that wasn’t at all clear from Trump’s phrasing at the time, which repeatedly referenced “people from within.” In a statement earlier this week, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign said Trump “is suggesting that his fellow Americans are worse ‘enemies’ than foreign adversaries, and he is saying he would use the military against them.”
“We know who Donald Trump is,” Harris posted on Tuesday to X. “He will stop at nothing to claim power for himself.”
