Donald Trump’s stance on Russia has taken an unexpected turn. Once seen as relatively soft toward Vladimir Putin, a recently leaked audio tape obtained by CNN paints a very different picture. In the recording, Trump allegedly boasts about threatening to “bomb the sh*t out of Moscow” if Russia invaded Ukraine — a claim that has now sparked a swift response from Moscow.
The U.S.-Russia relationship has long been complicated, but the conflict in Ukraine since 2022 has only deepened tensions. As Russia’s invasion reshaped global alliances, the dynamic between Washington and Moscow has become even more fraught.
Trump once appeared to share a somewhat friendly rapport with Putin. Before taking office in 2017, he famously promised he could end the Ukraine-Russia war within 24 hours. Though that never materialized, Trump held multiple phone calls with Putin and expressed trust in the Russian leader’s desire for peace.
“I believe he wants peace,” Trump said at the time. “I mean, I know him very well. Yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t. … I trust him on this subject.”
But recent developments tell a different story. With peace talks between Ukraine and Russia effectively dead, Trump’s tone has hardened. During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, he criticized Putin’s resistance to negotiations and bluntly said the Russian president was “throwing a lot of bullsh*t at the US.”
“I’m not happy with Putin,” Trump declared. “I’m very unhappy with them.”
Trump’s Shocking ‘Bomb Moscow’ Threat
Despite previous public friendliness, the leaked audio suggests Trump privately took a far sterner stance last year. CNN revealed recordings from a 2024 presidential campaign fundraiser where Trump told donors he threatened Putin with devastating retaliation if Russia attacked Ukraine.
“With Putin I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the sh*t out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice,’” Trump said. “And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10%.”
Trump also claimed he gave Chinese President Xi Jinping a similar warning about a potential invasion of Taiwan — threatening to bomb Beijing — though he said Xi dismissed him as “crazy,” and “we never had a problem.”
These revelations were further detailed in the new book 2024 by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf.
So far, Trump and his team have not publicly commented on the leaked audio or its contents. CNN noted that the recordings date from 2024 but did not clarify when or where the alleged threats took place.
Kremlin Responds with Skepticism
The Kremlin was quick to respond to the explosive claims. Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for the Russian government, told Russian news agency TASS (via Newsweek) that he could neither confirm nor deny Trump’s alleged warning to Putin.
Peskov added that there were no phone conversations between Trump and Putin during the period Trump was not president, suggesting doubts about the timeline of the alleged threat.
“The fact is that there were no telephone conversations then,” Peskov said. “After all, we are talking, as far as I understand, about the period when Trump was not yet the president of the United States.”
He also expressed skepticism about the authenticity of the recordings, pointing to the abundance of misinformation circulating today.
“Whether this is fake or not, we also do not know. There are a lot of fakes now. Often, there are many more fakes than true information. And we always proceed from this when we analyze certain news,” Peskov added.