The death of Alexei Navalni has been used as an excuse by Donald Trump to play the martyr, comparing the Russian opponent's death in prison to his legal ordeal and the political persecution he is allegedly the target of at the hands of his Democratic rivals. As he did the day before in a publication on his social network Truth Social, in which he alluded to the death of the dissident without making a single allusion to the Kremlin, the Republican candidate best placed in his party's primaries took advantage of an advantage he scored met with voters in the City Council of Greenville (South Carolina) to repeat this Tuesday his argument that the four criminal charges he faces, in addition to several civil lawsuits, are the result of President Joe's administration's attempt to block his candidacy to derail Biden.
The question-and-answer session, a format widely used in the election campaign, was moderated, recorded and later broadcast in prime time on Fox News, the conservative broadcaster that serves as a loudspeaker for Republicans. During the meeting, Trump, who was ordered by a New York judge on Friday to pay $355 million for business fraud, lamented Navalni's death, which President Biden and other Western leaders blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime. Even some old-guard Republicans, who were the majority in the party before Trump's colonization, blamed the Kremlin for their opponent's disappearance.
“Navalny is a very sad situation and he is very brave, he was a very brave guy,” Trump replied to a question from the Fox journalist. “He came back.” [a Rusia en 2021 tras recuperarse en BerlÃn de un intento de envenenamiento con novichok]he could have stayed out, and the truth is, it probably would have been much better to stay out and talk from outside the country instead of having to go back in because that's what people thought [su muerte] It could happen, and it did.
“And it's a terrible thing, but it's happening in our country too,” Trump said, suggesting that his accusations – two of them about trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat – were evidence that the United States States “become one.” “In many ways a communist country.” “They have accused me four times (…), all for the simple reason that I am in politics (…). “They accused me of things that are so ridiculous…” he complained. The other two charges relate to paying bribes to a porn actress to prevent their relationship, if it came to light, from affecting her election campaign in 2016, and keeping secret documents she kept after she left office from the presidency illegally took with him from the White House.
But what seems to be hurting Trump the most right now is the sizable penalty that Judge Arthur Engoron handed down to him on Friday for committing corporate fraud by inflating the value of his real estate to obtain advantageous loans: $355 million -Dollars, once the interest is added 450 and leaves him practically without liquidity (he must pay the deposit within 30 days, a requirement to appeal the judgment). “It’s a form of Navalny,” Trump said, with his usual disdain for Faulkner’s language. “It’s a form of communism, fascism.”
After outraged NATO and the United States' main European partners by promising that he would let Putin do whatever he wanted with the allies, Trump made no references to Putin this Tuesday, but that is not the case Also new: During his presidency, he was more praising than critical of the Kremlin's strongman. However, the context is different: Ukraine has just suffered a significant setback, the loss of the city of Andiivka, which has passed under Russian control, while the promised aid to Kiev is hanging by a thread in the Cáceres House of Representatives in the face of Republican resistance. He was actually referring to Putin last week when he said he took as a compliment a statement he made that he preferred Biden in the White House because he was more predictable than Trump. Both Biden and Trump are expected to compete for the presidency – i.e. re-election – in November. Even if the Republican were convicted in one of the pending trials – the first begins March 25 in New York – that would not prevent him from running for office.
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Asked whether his victimhood made him a potential political prisoner like Navalny — another question the Fox host had floated — the Republican candidate avoided answering. “If I had lost in the polls, they wouldn’t have even talked about me and I wouldn’t have had any legal fees,” he replied. To that end, his campaign committed $50 million last year. “If I was out, I think – even though they hate me so much, I think if I were out.” [de la contienda] they would carry on [atacándole]“Let’s hunt this guy down, we can’t stand this guy.”
The debate comes four days before Trump faces Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina. The Fox journalist opened the session by offering Trump the opportunity to explain or clarify the only reference he has made so far to Navalny's death, namely the aforementioned post in Truth Social published this Monday. Without mentioning Putin or the Russian dissident's family, Trump wrote: “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me increasingly aware of what is happening in our country,” he wrote, before attacking “the radical left politicians, prosecutors and judges.” “set us on the path to destruction” and repeat their false claims that the US elections are rife with fraud.
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