Trump Makes Startling Putin Confession in Train-Wreck Interview

In a disaster of an interview on Tuesday, Donald Trump was happy to brag about his friendship with Vladmir Putin, admitting he continued the relationship with the Russian leader even after leaving the Oval Office.

Trump dodged and weaved throughout his interview at the Economic Club of Chicago. But interviewer John Micklethwait, Bloomberg’s editor in chief, attempted to get a direct answer from Trump about his relationship with the Russian president.

“Can you say, yes or no, whether you have talked to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president?” asked Micklethwait.

“Well, I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that, if I did, it’s a smart thing,” Trump responded. “If I’m friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

“That sounds very much like you did talk to him,” Micklethwait replied.

His answer seems to be a confirmation of revelations last week that Trump has talked to the Russian autocrat at least seven times since leaving the White House. Trump’s team lashed out over that report, made in Bob Woodward’s book War, calling it a “made-up” story by “a truly demented and deranged man.”

However, in his speeches and interviews, including Monday night in Pennsylvania, Trump was happy to gloat, saying, “I get along very well with Putin.”

During a late-night posting binge after midnight Tuesday, Donald Trump bragged about his health and medical exams while attacking Kamala Harris.

Trump claimed that Harris “is dying to see my Cholesterol (which is 180!)” and claimed that he has already released his medical records, “including quite recently, and they were flawless.” In reality, Trump hasn’t released his medical records, even though he said in August that he would. 

Harris released a two-page report about her health on Saturday, which concluded that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties” of the presidency, including those of commander-in-chief. The report noted that Harris did have seasonal allergies as well as urticaria, a common skin condition. Trump seized on this.

“These are deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning. Maybe that is why she can’t answer even the simplest of questions asked by 60 Minutes, and others. What is this all about? I don’t have these problems,” Trump posted.

The former president is likely mad that Harris called him out at a rally on Sunday for his refusal to release any records or information about his health, asking whether the Trump campaign is “afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America.”

In his posts, he again complained about Harris’s 60 Minutes interview, which took place more than a week ago and for some reason still occupies his mind. Is his cognitive condition getting worse thanks to the pressures of the presidential race? He had a very bizarre “town hall” earlier Monday evening, in which his fans had to watch him listening to music for nearly 40 minutes.

On Tuesday, he also canceled a scheduled interview with CNBC, one week after he canceled his own 60 Minutes interview, a longtime precedent for presidential candidates. All of this seems to bolster Harris’s argument that Trump has something to hide.

Even Donald Trump’s MAGA allies are in disbelief over the Republican presidential nominee’s recent comments.

Several leading Republicans have outright refused to acknowledge that direct quotes from Trump’s weekend interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo were actually what he said. Trump claimed on video that the real election threat in November was his critics, such as California Representative Adam Schiff, whom he referred to as “the enemy from within,” and that the military should be called in to forcibly intervene with the election.

Speaking with CNN Tuesday morning, Florida Representative Mike Waltz dismissed the idea that Trump had used such language, claiming that it was instead the network’s attempt at “connecting some dots.”

“I don’t think that’s what he said, John,” Waltz told host John Berman, before pointing to civil unrest and mass protests during 2020. “I think that’s completely appropriate, the National Guard was rolled out then.… We cannot have, nor should we have, riots in the streets, business owners threatened, and Americans feeling unsafe.”

“Do you think deploying the military against political opponents is something that’s responsible to discuss from political candidates?” Berman asked, after a curt back-and-forth.

“I think it’s responsible to discuss deploying the National Guard, which is clearly part of the military, John, to keep our streets safe, to keep rioters out of the streets,” Waltz said.

But Trump hadn’t just threatened to send out the National Guard—instead, he specified the use of the larger military apparatus.

“We have some very bad people,” Trump said on Sunday. “We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the—and it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also struggled Monday evening to rationalize the MAGA leader’s violent rhetoric, stunning CNN host Jake Tapper, who had to remind the governor that Trump had “literally” said those words.

“Again, Jake, I don’t think that, and again, I can’t speak for him, but I do—I do think that you are misinterpreting and misrepresenting his thoughts,” said Youngkin. “I do believe, again, it’s all around the fact that we have had an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants come over the border in an unconstrained, unrestrained fashion. The Biden-Harris administration has allowed it to happen … I don’t think that he’s referring to elected people in America.”

“But I’m literally reading his quotes,” proclaimed Tapper. “I’m literally reading his quotes to you. And I played them earlier, so you could hear that they were not made up by me.”

“I don’t—I don’t believe that’s what he’s saying,” Youngkin insisted.

Even Trump’s own campaign team is rushing to sanewash the comments. The campaign posted a video Monday of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz directly quoting Trump’s threat.

“Tim Walz peddles a disgusting lie that President Trump will use the U.S. Army against his political opponents,” the campaign wrote on X. “This is reckless, dangerous rhetoric. Tim should be ASHAMED of himself.”

Mark Esper, who served as secretary of defense during Donald Trump’s presidency, is warning that the former president’s threat to use the military on the “enemy from within” shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Trump’s military threat came on Sunday morning when he told Fox News, “I don’t think [migrants are] the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics, and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Esper about Trump’s comments Monday night, and whether he took them seriously.

“He’s spoken about this before, if you recall a year ago or so, he spoke about a second Trump term being about retribution, so yes, I think we should take those words seriously,” Esper said.

Collins then cited Esper’s book where he wrote that Trump, during the 2020 protests following George Floyd’s murder, asked about shooting protesters. She asked the former secretary if he feared that Trump would try to use the National Guard or military against American citizens in that way.

“Yes, I do, of course, because I lived through that and I saw over the summer of 2020, where President Trump and those around him wanted to use the National Guard in various capacities, in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle,” Esper said.

Collins asked if Esper was worried about who would be in his role in a future Trump administration if Trump suggests shooting protesters or makes a similar order.

“My concern is that the first year of the second Trump term would look more like the last year of the first Trump term. I think President Trump has learned the key is getting people around you who will do your bidding, who will not push back, who will implement what you want to do,” Esper said.

The fact that a former Trump official is warning to take Trump’s threats of using the military against his opponents seriously is a cause for alarm. Trump has already pledged to, if elected, begin mass deportations against both undocumented and legal immigrants, prosecuting his opponents for treason, and taking revenge against those he feels have wronged him.

Esper isn’t the only former Trump official who is worried, either: Retired U.S. Army general and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley has spoken about his fears of a Trump presidency, warning that Trump is “fascist to the core.” With the election only weeks away, the question is whether the media and the public will listen to people who worked closely with Trump, or if their fears will be realized.

One of Donald Trump’s campaign managers is cashing in big on the Republican nominee’s quest to retake the White House. Chris LaCivita’s firm has earned a staggering sum of $19.2 million in just the past two years

According to an investigation by The Daily Beast, LaCivita’s LLC pocketed $15.7 million in 2022 as he served as a “strategic consultant” for a Trump-aligned super PAC.* Since then, he’s continued to earn more through Trump’s 2024 campaign with the help of generous cuts on his campaign ads, and he will receive another  $150,000 bonus if Trump wins the election. On top of that, LaCivita has also received upfront payments for his services that have amounted up to $75,000 a month for “voter contact consulting,” according to multiple sources who spoke with the Beast.

Trump’s other co-campaign manager, Susie Wiles, is a volunteer. And on the other side of the ticket, Harris’s campaign manager is paid $13,442 a month, according to campaign finance records, a far more paltry sum in comparison.

Some of this look into Trump’s campaign finances was brought to light by an “audit” of the books led by  Trump campaign senior adviser Corey Lewandowski, who recently returned to Trump’s side. Lewandowski found that LaCivita’s consulting firm—which has no website and is headquartered in LaCivita’s home—had earned $3 million from the race and could collect another $5 million more by November. 

The Trump campaign and LaCivita pushed back against the Beast’s findings but did not offer the publication alternative numbers for the co-manager’s earnings.

“While the individuals responsible for attempting this kamikaze operation are known, their self-serving attempt to defame me will not distract us from continuing to deliver for President Trump and winning this election,” said LaCivita, taking a jab at Lewandowski.

“This entire story is fabricated nonsense, cooked up by talentless grifters who lack the integrity and skill to contribute to President Trump’s continued electoral success,” he said. “Every member of this team, myself included, has been fairly and responsibly compensated, with the priority of electing President Trump at the forefront of every strategic and financial decision we have made.”

Other Republicans have previously called out LaCivita for his grifting. Last year, an “opposition research” memo put forth by a super PAC backing Governor Ron DeSantis accused LaCivita of “cashing in on Trump” for “personal enrichment,” according to documents acquired by the Beast. They found that LaCivita pocketed $15.7 million and $4 million respectively from two of Trump’s super PACs during the 2022 midterms.

LaCivita’s take-home pay stands in even starker comparison when you consider that Trump’s campaign is struggling to match Kamala Harris in fundraising as the election nears. But don’t count on LaCivita to give up the hustle anytime soon.

* This article has been updated to reflect corrections made by The Daily Beast.