Fareed Zakaria, discussing Trump on CNN: "This is the mode of a bullshit artist." pic.twitter.com/WXsgeegGFS
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 1, 2016
Journalist Fareed Zakaria is slamming Donald Trump as a “bullshit artist” after the GOP presidential nominee tried to walk back claims that Russia would not intervene in Ukraine.
“There’s a term for this kind of thing — this is the mode of a bullshit artist,” Zakaria said on CNN’s “Wolf” on Monday about Trump’s reversal.
{mosads}”It’s sometimes amusing, it’s entertaining, if the guy is trying to sell you a condo or a car. But for the president of the United States, it’s uniquely worrying,” he continued.
Zakaria was referring to Trump’s claim Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not “going into Ukraine.”
Russian forces invaded Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. Since then, Moscow has been supporting pro-separatist groups in Ukraine’s eastern region.
Trump on Monday claimed in a tweet that he meant Russia would not invade Ukraine if he were president. “I am saying if I am President. Already in Crimea!” he tweeted.
Zakaria didn’t buy the explanation.
“Every time it’s been demonstrated that Donald Trump is plainly ignorant about some basic public policy issue, some well-known fact, he comes back with a certain bravado and tries to explain it away with a tweet or a statement,” he said Monday.
Zakaria specifically referenced past Trump comments on the British vote to leave the European Union, the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the national debt, and a remark in which Trump mixed up Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and former Virginia governor, and Tom Kean, a former New Jersey governor.
It’s only the latest controversy to engulf the GOP nominee, who drew rebukes from several top Republicans over the weekend after he criticized the family of a Muslim U.S. soldier killed in the Iraq War.
Trump’s Ukraine comments prompted a stern rebuke from Democrats. Rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign used the remark to argue that Trump was ignorant of the foreign policy knowledge needed to be commander in chief. They also questioned Trump’s ties to Russia.
Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, advised a former Ukrainian prime minister loyal to the Kremlin. Trump’s business ties to Russia have also come under scrutiny after he said he hoped that Russian hackers were able to steal Clinton’s emails.