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Anthony Scaramucci thinks Donald Trump is going to 'give Putin what he wants' on Ukraine
12 November 2024, 00:54
Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director, has revealed he thinks President-elect Donald Trump is "he's going to give Putin what he wants".
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Trump has previously criticised Washington's provision of tens of billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia, leading to fears that funding could wane under his second presidency.
In a post-election interview with Saxo, Scaramucci was asked by Flaminia Luck from LBC News about Trump's past admiration for Putin, his scepticism towards US support for Ukraine and the future of US-Russia relations under his administration.
He questioned "what kind of a number" Trump and Elon Musk could do on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, following a joint phone call.
However, he also said Russian state TV broadcasting naked images of Melania Trump may have spooked him.
The images, which were shown on the 60 minutes programme on the Russia 1 channel, came from a GQ modelling shoot from 2000.
"It makes me think it was a tell to Trump, that they've got stuff on him and they're going to embarrass him if he does things they don't like," he added.
In the interview on Monday, he said: "So, it's interesting because apparently he had Elon Musk on the call with him and Zelensky, so I'm saying to myself, what the hell are they talking about?
"What kind of a number are they going to do on Zelensky?
"In the meantime, he's also leaked that he wants Putin to deescalate what's going on, so it'll be really telling.
"If he goes to Putin and says, "Knock it off, otherwise I'm going to triple fortify the Ukraine”, people in this country will be shocked - everyone's expecting him to partition the Ukraine.
"But something happened over the weekend that made me think about these things a little differently.
"On Russian television, they were showing naked pictures of Melania.
"It makes me think it was a tell to Trump, that they've got stuff on him and they're going to embarrass him if he does things they don't like.
"It'll be interesting to see what happens - my gut tells me he's going to give Putin what he wants, but it's hard to know at this moment.
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"If Harris won, NATO would have been flexing against Putin.
"It would have helped the Ukrainians, it would have fortified the Eastern Europeans and helped the European economy.
"If he's going to partition the Ukraine, it's going to freak out Europe and it's going to cause Europe to spend lots of money on the military.
"It's probably going to depress the European economies. So, we'll have to see which direction he goes in."
Downing Street refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer believes Ukraine will be safe under a second Trump presidency, but added that it expected Washington to "remain alongside allies like the UK".
"We're not going to speculate on positions before the administration is in place. We always welcome sustained bipartisan support in the US or Ukraine, and that's been key to our international efforts to support," a Number 10 spokeswoman said.
"We expect the US to remain alongside allies like the UK in standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes to prevail over (Vladimir) Putin's invasion."
Saxo has provided extensive coverage and analysis of the US election.
