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Trump Scrambles to Defend Putin and Xi After Damning Revelations

The president says there’s no way all those reports about Russia and China helping out Iran are true.

Donald Trump has shrugged off overwhelming evidence that his dictator pals are helping out the very country he’s been at war with for the past seven and a half months.

“I see so many comments from the Radical Left Morons and Lunatics that China and Russia are helping the ‘wonderful’ Islamic Republic of Iran,” the president wrote in a late-night Truth Social post on Monday.

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“If they are, it’s at a very low level, but I don’t believe they are at all,” he went on. “They have too much to lose, and we would know about it, and know about it very fast!”

Trump, 80, promised his war with Tehran would only last a “few weeks” when he started it in February. The conflict has since proven one of the least popular in U.S. history, with voters ranking it and the economic pain it has helped cause among their chief anxieties going into the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Reports of Russian involvement emerged almost immediately. Moscow has supplied Tehran with sensitive information about American warships and aircraft, allowing Iranian forces to target them more effectively, the Washington Post revealed in March.

Vladimir Putin’s government has also carried out a clandestine operation to help Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles capable of threatening U.S. Navy vessels, according to the Financial Times. The arrangement involved specialists from Russian state-controlled weapons companies, with records indicating their work continued into the summer.

Putin himself told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in September that he has been “trying to give you the help you need in this difficult period” by “supplying you with the goods you need,” though he did not elaborate on what exactly that involved, the FT added.

Beijing has similarly thrown its weight behind Tehran in the conflict, with Iranian customs recording roughly 1,300 shipments of potential military-use goods from Chinese suppliers during the first six months of this year, the Wall Street Journal revealed last month. American officials also connected satellite imagery obtained from Chinese businesses to an Iranian attack that killed three U.S. troops.

Even Trump’s own defense chief has acknowledged the help Iran is receiving from Russia and China. Pete Hegseth told the Senate during a July hearing that both were enabling Iran’s war effort “at different levels,” though he declined to reveal the full extent of their involvement.

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Still, Trump has lavished attention on both Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping throughout the conflict. He even welcomed Jinping to the White House for a luxurious state visit last month, boasting about their “truly great friendship” only a day after the Journal had published its bombshell findings about China’s support for Iran.

And last Friday, Trump struck a controversial agreement with Putin to release Russian diesel into international markets, relaxing sanctions to hand Moscow a lucrative source of revenue as it continues its brutal invasion of Ukraine.

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That deal, intended to ease soaring U.S. fuel costs caused by Trump’s war with Iran, prompted a furious response from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who warned that “gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world.” Analysts suggest that the agreement will do little, if anything, to ease pain at U.S. pumps ahead of next month’s contest for control of the House and Senate.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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