Trump Says He Would Have Allowed Russia To Take 'Certain Areas' Of Ukraine [Audio]

Former President Donald Trump on Monday said he would have let Russian President Vladimir Putin take control of "certain areas" of Ukraine to avoid the war.

Trump made the comment in a radio interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity after he was asked how he would have prevented the war in Ukraine from happening. The former president boasted that under his administration, the Russian Federation did not occupy any region, unlike his predecessors.

"That's without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. At worst, I could've made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could've worked a deal," he said, according to an audio recording of the interview published by The Daily Beast.

Trump's remarks, however, were cut from the excerpts played by Hannity on his primetime Fox News program.

Hannity only aired the segment where Trump boasted he could have worked out a deal with Russia but omitted the portion where he said he would surrender parts of Ukraine and instead went on to play the part where Trump complained about China's lack of respect toward the United States, the Daily Beast noted.

In addition to his remarks, Trump also said more Ukrainian citizens are dying in the war than what is being reported, adding that it "would never have happened" had he still been the president.

Trump previously bragged that he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours if he was president, adding that he could end the possibility of World War III.

The former president had also touted his "good relationship" with Putin a number of times since the war began, even going so far as to remark that he trusted the Russian leader more than the U.S. intelligence community.

"Remember when [the media] hit me with a question: 'Who do you trust: ... your intelligence people, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page (how about Lisa)? Or Putin?' And I said: You know, that could be the toughest question I've ever been asked as a politician. And then when I really didn't give them a very good answer in terms of exactness ... oh, all hell broke loose," Trump said. "But that's okay, you know, that's okay. And it turned out I was right. I was right about that, too."

Last year, Trump also called Putin's invasion of Ukraine "genius" and "savvy" and said the Russian leader's move of declaring a portion of Ukraine as independent is "wonderful."