Trump: Russian Invasion a 'Holocaust,' Calls to 'Stop Killing'

Former President Donald Trump Wednesday, calling the growing Russia-Ukraine situation a "holocaust," called for an end to the killing that is taking place and said the escalation has grown because the United States and President Joe Biden are "no longer respected."

However, he said, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, that the time is right to work out a deal with Russia to stop the hostilities, as that nation has "gotten in deeper than they thought possible" with Ukraine's strong defense forces.

"This is a horrible thing that is happening," Trump said. "You are witnessing it, seeing it every night."

Ukraine has been able to stand up to its much-larger neighbor, in part, because of the weapons provided through his administration, Trump added, meaning that a peace deal could be worked out with Russia, which is "not looking so good."

"You have to work out a deal," he said. "They have to stop killing these people … but they don't respect the United States, and the United States, they aren't doing anything about it."

But the United States is spending billions of dollars every day buying Russian oil, rather than opening its capabilities, and that is funding Russia's efforts, said Trump.

"You stop buying their oil, and that will do it," said Trump. "We don't need oil from these other countries. These countries are not our friends. We don't need oil from them. The biggest advantage we have over China is the fact they don't have oil. We do. It is liquid gold under our feet."

Meanwhile, Trump said he feels "somewhat vindicated" with Germany's decision to send weapons to Ukraine and to pay more into NATO.

"I got them to pay $430 billion," said Trump. "When I first went, my first meeting at NATO … they weren't paying, 20 out of 28 countries were not current. Many were totally delinquent, I said, If you don't pay we are not going to defend you. I took a lot of heat for that, but guess what? Everybody paid."

Biden's "weak statements" also spurred Russia to attack, said Trump.

"He said we will never fight them," the former president said. "Whether fighting or not, you don't say that publicly."

The former president also slammed Biden's Tuesday night State of the Union address as "terrible."

"He didn't talk about inflation," said Trump. "He didn't have any ideas for inflation, and most importantly, he didn't talk about energy with oil."

He noted that, a year ago, the United States was energy independent and was exporting oil and gas for the first time in the country's history, but Biden stopped the industry after taking office.

"We would be double the size of Saudi Arabia and Russia combined [because] we would have been No. 1," said Trump. "The event in Ukraine would have never happened if I was president … we would be exporting oil to everybody. That would have kept it from happening in itself because Russia wouldn't make a fortune on oil."

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has refused the Biden administration's request to increase oil production, Bartiromo noted, and Trump agreed that Biden should end his moratorium on drilling in the United States.

"Saudi Arabia and also, OPEC, as a whole they've rejected every request they made," said Trump. "We had energy [prices] so low, I was fighting to keep it up. Do you remember it went down to numbers that nobody has ever seen before? We had it back up — we got to $40 [a barrel] and that was good; everybody could make money at the same time we were at $1.87 [a gallon] at the pump for gasoline."

Trump also pointed out that the Biden administration's actions with the border, including stopping construction on the wall, have resulted in the "best border we ever had in the history of our country" now being its "worst."

"And we have the worst situation in oil," he said. "This is what is causing inflation. If you want to knock inflation a big chunk you lower the hell out of oil prices, and we could do that."

Trump also on Wednesday said he thinks China will eventually invade Taiwan, as its leaders see the United States' leaders as incompetent on Ukraine and weak on Afghanistan.

"President Xi [Jinping] happens to be a man with high intelligent levels," said Trump, pointing out that the Chinese leader has seen how the United States left Afghanistan in a surrender, leaving $85 billion in equipment and American citizens behind.

"He sees that this is his opportunity to do what he wanted to do, [which is ] what China wanted to do for decades," Trump added.