Donald Trump made his first public comment Monday about the death of Alexei Navalny, although the former president said substantively little about the Russian opposition leader or the Kremlin.
What You Need To Know
- Donald Trump made his first public comment Monday about the death of Alexei Navalny, although the former president said substantively little about the Russian opposition leader or the Kremlin
- Trump began a post on his Truth Social site with “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country” and then made the same sort of grievances on other matters he makes on a near-daily basis
- Trump’s remarks came three days after Navalny died in a Russian prison and follows repeated calls from Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley for Trump to comment on his death
- According to The Washington Post, Trump appears to never have mentioned Navalny by name during his presidency
In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump wrote: “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION!”
Trump, who is running for president again, repeats the same grievances about border security, his legal troubles and the direction of the country, as well as his baseless claims of election fraud, on a near-daily basis on his social media site, in interviews and on the campaign trail.
Trump’s remarks came three days after Navalny died in a Russian prison and follows repeated calls from Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley for Trump to comment on his death.
Prior to Monday, Trump’s only mention of Navalny since he died was when he shared a post on Truth Social on Sunday that seemed to suggest he is being persecuted in the United States much like Navalny was in Russia. The headline of the post was “Biden:Trump::Putin:Navalny.”
When asked Friday about whether Trump had a comment on Navalny’s death, his campaign directed reporters to another Trump Truth Social post, which made no mention of Navalny or Russia, instead saying, “America is no longer respected because we have an incompetent president who is weak and doesn’t understand what the World is thinking.”
According to the Russian federal prison service, Navalny died in prison near the Arctic Circle after losing consciousness following a walk.
An outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny blamed the Kremlin for poisoning him with a nerve agent in 2020. After recovering in Germany for more than a year, he was arrested upon returning to Russia and later sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges he and his supporters said were bogus and politically motivated.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, accused Putin on Monday on refusing to hand over Navalny’s body to his mother as part of a cover-up. Russian authorities have said that the cause of Navalny’s death is still unknown.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday quickly blamed Russia for Navalny’s death, although he stopped short of calling it an assassination.
“What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality,” he said. “No one should be fooled — not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world. Putin does not only target his [sic] citizens of other countries, as we’ve seen what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people.”
Haley spent the weekend calling out Trump over his silence on Navalny.
“Putin has done to him what Putin does to all of his opponents — he kills them,” the former United Nations ambassador told reporters Saturday in Irmo, South Carolina. “And Trump needs to answer to that. Does he think Putin killed him? Does he think Putin was right to kill him? And does he think Navalny was a hero?”
Haley, Trump’s only remaining major competition for the Republican presidential nomination, has tied the former president’s evasiveness on Navalny to his comments earlier this month that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that had not met their financial obligations. In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, Haley said she found it “amazing” that Trump would not only encourage Putin to invade NATO countries but not acknowledge “anything with Navalny.”
“Either he sides with Putin and thinks it’s cool that Putin killed one of his political opponents or he just doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Haley said. “Either one of those is concerning. Either one of those is a problem.”
According to The Washington Post, Trump appears to never have mentioned Navalny by name during his presidency.
Trump did not condemn the poisoning of Navalny in 2020. When asked about it then, he said there was no proof of Russia’s involvement at the time and then argued that people should be more concerned about China than Russia.
Ryan Chatelain
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