Fmr U.S. Amb to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch Says Trump Would've Prevented War - And That's A Bad Thing

Marie Yovanovitch -- the former US Ambassador to Ukraine under Trump who testified against him in the 2019 impeachment, and was lauded as a hero -- suggests that if Trump were in office, he'd have averted the war diplomatically. But she thinks this would've been a terrible thing pic.twitter.com/1Q4qp5cNOA

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 23, 2022

MARGARET HOOVER: President Trump has claimed that this invasion quote never would have happened in the Trump administration. I've heard that you have also suggested that Putin might not have gone to war if Trump was still in office. And you said quote, you don't need to go to war if you're getting everything you want through other means. Tell me what you meant by that.

MARIE YOVANOVITCH: Trump was very dismissive of NATO – I mean, dismissive, it's obviously a diplomatic word – very critical of NATO, critical of our allies. And his close associates, including John Bolton, have said that if he had won a second term, he would have pulled us out of NATO. I mean, why go to war with Vladimir Putin if the United States is going to present kind of the corpse of NATO on a silver platter? You don't need to do that.

HOOVER: I mean, how do you think the invasion would have been different if Trump had remained as president?

YOVANOVITCH: I think that Trump would have provided Putin with enough of what he wanted that perhaps he wouldn't have invaded.

HOOVER: If Trump had had a second term and you think that Putin wouldn't have invaded because of that, what would Ukraine look like?

YOVANOVITCH: We are now getting into– You know, this is why diplomats are told [LAUGHS] never to answer theoretical questions! So we're getting into areas of– you know, I mean, it's a hypothetical question, right? I don't know what Trump would have done, and I don't know what Putin would have done. But I can't see Trump, President Trump standing up for Ukraine the way President Biden is right now.