Trump remains silent on Navalny’s death

Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, was silent following news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death on Friday. Instead, his campaign referred a reporter to a statement that didn't reference Navalny or Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"In just three and a half years under Crooked Joe Biden, the World has experienced Misery, Destruction, and Death. America is no longer respected because we have an incompetent president who is weak and doesn’t understand what the World is thinking. I am the only one who can bring Peace, Prosperity, and Stability like I did during my first term. America will be respected and feared (if necessary!) again," Trump said in the vague statement posted to Truth Social.

Trump's silence has been criticized by his last remaining GOP opponent, Nikki Haley, who also slammed the former president for his past praise of Putin.

"Putin murdered his political opponent and Trump hasn’t said a word after he said he would encourage Putin to invade our allies. He has, however, posted 20+ times on social media about his legal drama and fake polls," Haley said on X, formerly known as Twitter, several hours after Navalny's death was first reported.

“Putin did this. The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends,” Haley wrote in a social media post reacting to the news earlier Friday morning.

“The same Trump who said: ‘In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that,’” Haley continued, referring to comments Trump made in 2015, when he pushed back against the notion that Putin had killed journalists. Trump also praised Putin’s leadership, describing him as “a strong leader.”

Since then, Trump has called Putin “pretty smart,” and welcomed Putin’s praise of him, telling NBC’s Kristen Welker in September 2023, “I like that he said that.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment Friday.

According to the Russian federal prison service, Navalny died in a high-security prison near the Arctic Circle after losing consciousness following a walk.

Navalny has long been Putin’s most prominent foil, and survived a poisoning attempt in 2020 that his supporters say was a state-sponsored attempt to kill him. After being treated in Germany, he returned to Russia and was immediately arrested and imprisoned.

Former Vice President Mike Pence struck a similar tone: "There is no room in the Republican Party for apologists for Putin," he wrote in a post to X on Friday.