Trump threatened to bomb Moscow? Audio tapes reveal US president threatened Putin, Xi Jinping in 2024

A series of audio tapes released recently has revealed that US President Donald Trump had once threatened to bomb Moscow to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine.

The audio clips were obtained by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arsdorf, the authors of the book “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America”. CNN aired them yesterday, soon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in “forging peace” especially in the Middle East.

In one of the clips, Trump is heard telling a private gathering of fundraisers last year, that he had once threatened to bomb Moscow to stop Putin from attacking Ukraine. "With Putin, I said ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m gonna bomb the sh*t out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice',” Trump is heard saying. “And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10 per cent.” 

Later on in the audio clip, Trump claimed to have relayed a similar message to Chinese President Xi Jinping. “ If you go to Taiwan, I’m going to bomb the sh*t out of Beijing,” he is heard saying. “He thought I was crazy. I said I have no choice, I have to bomb Beijing. And he didn't believe me either. He makes sure to say that “We've never had a problem.”​

The comments were made during Trump’s second presidential campaign, during fundraisers held in New York and Florida in 2024, according to CNN. Experts believe that Trump's claims were an attempt to project himself as a better candidate to end conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine as the US president, than Joe Biden.

Trump added at the end of the clip that “we gotta win this election, we got so many other things to do”.

In another clip, he shares his opinions on student protesters. “One thing I’d do is that any student who protests, I’d throw him out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students here”, apparently referring to the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in college campuses. “It's a major revolution taking place". To this, one donor is heard saying that “they have to suspend and expel the students. They have to get rid of the radical professors. We have to stop giving scholarships to radical students.” Another donor responds, ”The problem is that they will be the future leaders. They will be the Senate, the Congress and running this country-years from now. To that, Trump is heard replying, ”If you get me elected, we will set that movement back 25-30 years.”

Since becoming the US president, Trump has ordered mass deportations of immigrants and foreign students. There have also been crackdowns and arrests of international students who protested the war in Gaza.

At a different fundraiser, he comments on how he pushes wealthy donors and companies to give more money to the election campaign. 

“You know, the unions give big money, the civil service stuff gives big money, and you know they have the advantage of welfare,” he is heard saying. “The welfare people will always vote for the Democrats. You can’t change it.”                 

He also talks about how he tries to convince his Jewish friends to get the community to start voting for the Republican party “The one thing that I have to say to my Jewish friends, you've got to get them to start voting Republican.”

The president also says that he had convinced many wealthy donors to offer him more money than they originally intended. He claimed about how he had convinced a company that initially offered to give him $2 to $3 million, to offer $35 million after he said, “I would be really happy with 25 but much happier with 50”. 

World