Biden groans when asked if Trump would have tipped Putin off to coup attempt

Mr Biden didn’t say whether he thinks Mr Trump would’ve tipped off the Russian leader

President Biden on Thursday said he tries not to consider the national security issues that would’ve been in play had Donald Trump defeated him in the 2020 election and remained in the White House during Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Specifically, Mr Biden told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that he actively attempts to keep such thoughts out of his head when Wallace asked if he thought Mr Trump would have tipped off Russian President Vladimir Putin to the abortive coup attempt waged by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin over the weekend.

“Oh God, I try not to think about that,” Mr Biden said.

The president added that Mr Putin, who according to multiple investigations by the US Intelligence Community and the Senate Intelligence Committee, ordered what former special counsel Robert Mueller described as a “sweeping and systematic” campaign to interfere in the 2016 election on Mr Trump’s behalf, had believed he could “break up the solidarity of the west”.

But Mr Biden added that he and other Nato leaders have “been able to hold everything together” with the aim of ensuring that Mr Putin’s war on Ukraine “does not succeed”.