Modi is 'total killer' with nation's adversaries: Trump

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a "total killer" with the nation's adversaries and turned down offers of help when India faced threats, former US President Donald Trump has said.

"He's great, he's a friend of mine, but on the outside, he looks like he's your father", yet "he's the nicest, total killer", Trump recalled during a podcast interview released recently.

Explaining the assessment, he said, "We had a couple of occasions where somebody was threatening India. I said, let me help. I'm very good with those people. Let me help."

But PM Modi turned down the offer saying, "I will do it. I will do it, and I will do anything necessary. We've defeated them for hundreds of years," Trump said.

While quoting PM Modi, Trump changed his voice to a tough-guy growl for effect on the podcast show, Flagrant, hosted by two comedians, Aakash Singh, and Andrew Cameron Schulz.

Trump said, "Wow, he was talking about a certain country, yeah, you can probably guess, but I said, 'Whoa, what happened there'?"

He left it up in the air which was the "certain country", but there were two major confrontations that involved China and Pakistan during Trump's rule, both of which did not escalate.

In 2019, following the Pulwama terrorist attack from Pakistan that killed about 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, the Indian Air Force struck the terror camps in Balakot, situated deep inside Pakistani territory.

With China, there was the 2020 clash without guns in Galwan in which some troops from both India and China were killed.

The Republican presidential candidate said that at a personal level with PM Modi, "we have a very good relationship. He's the nicest human being".

Trump made the observations when Schulz asked if world leaders were "all sharks"? And if he can "sense the energy immediately", and how he assesses their personalities.

Trump said that not all of them were "sharks", but gave the example of PM Modi as one of the tough leaders.

In his assessment of other leaders, he mentioned China's President Xi Jinping as one of the tough guys, and about French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump said, "He's a smart guy. He's all for France. I mean, he would, he would take the shirt off your back".

Disparaging President Joe Biden, he said that the other leaders – "some good people and some aren't good people" – are "at the top of their game", but "although he's still president" he is not capable of facing up to them.

As the presidential election nears, both Trump and Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris have been giving interviews to off-mainstream programmes like Flagrant to reach out to younger audiences and others who have tuned out the legacy media.

In the show filled with laughter and jokes, Trump said PM Modi "is the nicest Indian", and turning to Singh, asked him, "Do you like him or not?".

The US-born Singh, whose family is from Uttar Pradesh, replied noncommittally, "I have family on both sides".

With his penchant for hyperbole, Trump said that till PM Modi became Prime Minister there was instability in India. "Before him … they were replacing them every year. It was very unstable."

In fact in the decade before PM Modi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party ruled uninterrupted for two terms.

Trump fondly recalled his participation in the "Howdy Modi" event in Houston in 2020.

"It was me and him. We filled up the stadium. Was beautiful, like 80,000 people. Was going crazy," he said.

With a bit of nostalgia for the days when he wasn’t in the iron grip of security as he is now after two assassination attempts, he added, "We're walking around. Today, maybe I wouldn't be, maybe you wouldn't do that. We're walking, walking in the middle, waving to everybody."

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)