Don makes Putin foe’s death about him while trashing U.S.

Former President Donald Trump stopped short Monday of condemning the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny — but drew a curious comparison between it and his own legal troubles.

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” the ex-president wrote in a morning post on Truth Social.

“It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION!”

The social media outburst marked Trump’s first public acknowledgement of the Russian political dissident’s death since it was announced Friday. The ex-president is under four separate criminal indictments, and though he regularly claims the charges against him are politically motivated, there is no evidence to back up that inflammatory assertion.

The cause of Navalny’s death has yet to be announced. Russian authorities say he was declared dead Friday after collapsing in a prison near the Arctic Circle, where he’s been detained since 2021 on extremism charges.

Navalny was seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most potent political opponent. Anti-Putin politicians, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, were quick last week to blame Navalny’s death on the Russian strongman leader, whose regime has a history of assassinating’s political rivals.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Hayley, Trump’s lone long-shot opponent in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, over the weekend called him out over his silence on Navalny’s death.

“Either he sides with Putin and thinks it’s cool that Putin killed one of his political opponents, or he just doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal. Either one of those is concerning. Either one of those is a problem,” Haley said Sunday on ABC News.

Since the 2016 campaign, Trump has faced accusations of cozying up to Putin. He retriggered such accusations when he said during a campaign rally earlier this month that he would as president encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to a U.S. allied-country if it hasn’t met its NATO defense spending obligations.