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Charles Kupperman was the deputy national security adviser to former President Donald Trump.
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At a 2019 rally, he said, Trump became enraged when the topic turned to Ukraine.
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“He just let go,” Kupperman told The New York Times.
Former President Donald Trump was attacked and began cussing at a 2019 rally when the topic of Ukraine came up, according to a former aide, who falsely accused the country of trying to beat him in the 2016 US election.
Speaking to The New York Times Magazine, Charles Kupperman, then deputy national security adviser, accused his former boss of being unable to understand global politics and the importance of Ukraine. For him, Kupperman said, it was all personal.
That became clear during a meeting on May 23, 2019. According to Kupperman, who left the Trump administration five months later, Trump “just let go” when the subject of Ukraine came up.
“They are [expletive] corrupt. She [expletive] tried to screw me,” Trump told The Times.
Later that year, Trump was impeached by the House after withholding about $400 million in security aid for Ukraine approved by Congress, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy in a September phone call that he wanted a “favor” first: that he publicly announced an investigation into his rival’s son, Hunter Biden. He also called for an investigation into the unsubstantiated claim that it was Ukraine — not Russia — that meddled in the 2016 presidential campaign.
“I’d like you to find out what happened to this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike… The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump told Zelenskyy, referring to a false claim – pushed by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Russian intelligence — that Kiev had tried to help former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
In his interview with the Times, Kupperman said it was clear that this — and producing dirt on the Biden family — was the extent of his interest in Ukraine.
“If someone asked him to define ‘balance of power,’ he wouldn’t know what that concept was,” Kupperman said. “He would have no idea about the history of Ukraine and why it’s on the front pages today. He wouldn’t know that Stalin starved that country. Those are the contextual points to consider when making foreign policy. But he was unable to, because he had no understanding of history: how these countries and their leadership evolved, what drives these countries.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
