Former Trump national intelligence chief ‘stunned’ by remarks praising Putin

Former president’s remarks met with widespread condemnation

While Donald Trump has spent this week heaping praise on “savvy” Vladimir Putin for his “genius” initial moves on Ukraine preceding the invasion, one of the former president’s aides has come out against the stunning comments.

Dan Coats, who served as the former president’s director of national intelligence, told The Daily Beast on Thursday: “I cannot think of any other US president that would in a situation like this say what he said.”

Asked to further comment on the situation, specifically how President Joe Biden is handling the crisis, Mr Coats declined to comment on the matter.

He did however concede that Mr Biden has “a lot” to do right now.

This is not the first time that Mr Trump has stunned Mr Coats with regards to the Russian president.

In July 2018, news broke that Mr Putin was in talks for a visit to Washington later that year, according to the White House.

Mr Coats was being interviewed by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell at an event when he was told the news which Ms Mitchell read out from Twitter.

“Say that again,” said Mr Coats to laughter from the room.

“Okay… That’s going to be special,” he said, later adding that he was not aware of any planned meeting.

There have been other stunned reactions to Mr Trump’s most recent comments. The State Department said it had “no words”, and comedian John Stewart called Mr Trump’s comments “f***ing bonkers”.

The formal response of the Republican Party has been to condemn Mr Putin’s actions in Ukraine.