If US President Donald Trump succeeds in negotiating a ceasefire with Russian President Vladimir Putin, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said she would give Trump a Nobel Peace Prize during an interview on the “Raging Moderates” podcast released on Friday.
Trump and Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss a ceasefire with Ukraine on Friday.
“If he could bring about the end to this terrible war, where Putin is the aggressor,” she conditioned, “If he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor - had to, in a way, validate Putin’s vision of greater Russia - but instead could really stand up to Putin, something we haven’t seen.”
“There must be a ceasefire; there will be no exchange of territory; and, over a period of time, Putin should be withdrawing from territory he’s seized to demonstrate his ‘good faith efforts,’ not to threaten European security,” she argued should be the terms of the agreement.
“If President Trump were the architect of that, I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize,” she proclaimed.
Clinton ran against Trump in a highly contentious 2016 presidential election, where she won the popular vote, and he won the presidency through the Electoral College.
Trump is not meeting with a friend
“The first thing I hope President Trump is either told or reminding of, when he lands at our base in Alaska, is that he is landing at the very base that has to send up fighter planes to watch and fend off Russian bombers that routinely harass our military assets, do over flights, and engage in provocative behavior in the skies above Alaska.”
“He is not meeting with a friend. He is meeting with an adversary. An adversary who hopes to play him,” she continued. “The best thing that could come out of this, frankly, is nothing. Nothing agreed to, except a real strengthening of President Trump’s understanding that Putin is not someone you can make a deal with and expect it to last.”
She added that she hopes Trump “takes off the rose colored glasses that he has worn in dealing with Putin in the past, and recognizes that he’s dealing with someone who wants to see the destruction of the US and the Western alliance.”