Trump couldn't bring himself to condemn Putin for Alexey Navalny's death
- Donald Trump says he doesn't know if Vladimir Putin was responsible for Alexey Navalny's death.
- "Possibly, I could say probably. I don't know," Trump told Fox News.
Former President Donald Trump says he doesn't know if Russian leader Vladimir Putin was responsible for Alexey Navalny's death.
"I don't know, but perhaps. Possibly, I could say probably. I don't know," Trump told Fox News' Howard Kurtz in an interview that aired Sunday.
"He's a young man, so, statistically he'd be alive for a long time. If you go by the insurance numbers, he'd be alive for another 40 years. So something happened that was unusual," Trump said of Navalny, who was 47 years old when he died in an Arctic prison on February 16.
The late Russian opposition leader was known for his anti-Putin political campaigning and activism. Navalny nearly died in 2020 after he was poisoned with a nerve agent.
Meanwhile, Trump's rival, President Joe Biden, placed the blame squarely on Putin after Navalny's death was announced.
"Russian authorities are going to tell their own story. But make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny's death," President Joe Biden said in February.
This isn't the first time Trump has spoken about Navalny. The former president in February compared his brimming docket of legal troubles to the political persecution Navalny faced in Russia.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.