In early May 2016, as the political world began to consider questions about Donald Trump and his relationship with Vladimir Putin, the then-candidate was asked whether he’d spoken to the Russian leader. “I don’t want to say,” the Republican replied.
A day later, Trump sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, who followed up on the question. “Yeah, I have no comment on that,” the future president replied. “No comment.”
The Fox host, apparently surprised, said one of the things people liked about the candidate was his willingness “to answer any question.” Trump didn’t seem to care. “Yeah, but I don’t want to comment.”
It was an early indication that the Russia scandal was problematic for Trump. After all, the Republican hardly ever said, “No comment” in response to any question on any subject. He loved, and continues to love, commenting — even when he has no idea what he’s talking about. But asked about whether he’d had direct interactions with Putin, the then-candidate suddenly had nothing to say.
Nearly eight years later, Trump was asked at a Mar-a-Lago press conference whether he’d spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I don’t want to say who I spoke to,” the presumptive GOP nominee replied.
with tensions rising in the Middle East, Trump says he won’t talk about which foreign leaders he is or isn’t talking to pic.twitter.com/g5pVF5gjfp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 12, 2024
The question that doesn’t yet have an answer, of course, is why, exactly, Trump doesn’t want to say whom he’s spoken to.
In fact, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago, the former president appears to be executing a foreign policy of his own — despite the fact that he’s a private citizen with no power, no office, and no governmental authority. Trump reportedly welcomed British Foreign Secretary David Cameron to Mar-a-Lago, for example, which came on the heels of the former president also welcoming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to his glorified country club.
Trump has also reportedly had direct recent interactions with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Those accounts roughly coincided with related reporting on Richard Grenell, a former diplomat and intelligence official in Trump’s administration, who has apparently had recent meetings with a variety of far-right leaders around the world.
The former president has taken to describing Grenell as his “envoy,” despite the fact that it can get a little tricky when presidential candidates have their own envoys — whose goals, messages, and priorities might differ from that of the current U.S. administration. Let’s not forget that while Trump was in the White House, he called for the prosecution of former Secretary of State John Kerry because the Massachusetts Democrat interacted with foreign officials without coordinating with the Trump administration. In 2019, the then-president — who routinely tried to get the Justice Department to prosecute political figures he disliked — insisted that Kerry “should be prosecuted” for violating the Logan Act, adding, “He’s talking to Iran and has had many meetings and many phone calls and he’s telling them what to do. That is total violation of the Logan Act.” Trump had no idea what he was talking about, but he appeared convinced that a former U.S. official interacting with foreign governments was both scandalous and criminal. So, does the former president still believe this? This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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