Trump says he avoids calling Putin a dictator because he needs to make deals with him

President Donald Trump said he avoids calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a dictator or other names because he needs to negotiate with him.

“I have to make deals with people, so I don’t go around calling them names. I’m a deal maker,” Trump told Gray Media’s Jon Decker in an interview in Alaska. “I’ve always been a very good deal maker. I became very rich because of deals. So I don’t go around mocking people.”

Trump also blamed former President Joe Biden’s rhetoric toward Moscow for contributing to the war in Ukraine. “Part of the reason you have that war in the first place is Biden went around mocking Russia and mocking everybody else,” he said, adding that the war “should have never started.”

In the same interview, Trump cast uncertainty over Iran’s current leadership after months of conflict. “Who are we dealing with? Nobody’s exactly sure,” he said, asserting that Iran had lost much of its military and senior leadership.

Trump also defended his recent Russian diesel agreement, saying the fuel would be released to global markets rather than solely to the United States and arguing that it would help lower diesel prices.