Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday applauded President Trump’s shifting stance on the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

“I welcomed what the president said yesterday,” Clinton said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” referencing Trump’s Tuesday Truth Social post stating Ukraine could win the over three-years long war and even regain territory lost to Russia.

Earlier Tuesday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the president called Russia a “paper tiger,” which Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed on Wednesday.

Trump previously suggested that Ukraine would need to make territorial concessions in order to end the war. Russia currently occupies Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea, the last of which it annexed in 2014. 

The president’s Tuesday comments came after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During that meeting, Trump told reporters that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft in their airspace.

Clinton, in her Wednesday interview, argued that Trump is “coming to grips with the fact that Vladimir Putin does not respond to any kind of rhetoric, he only responds to strength.” 

“You have to show strength. You have to back strength. You have to be strong in order to deal with him,” she said, adding, “[Putin] poses a clear and present danger to all of Europe, and therefore, to the United States. And I think what President Trump said yesterday is, ‘If we help Ukraine, Ukraine can hold the line and may even be able to push Russia back.’”

Trump’s comments mark a contrast with his initial posture toward the war, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

During the 2024 presidential campaign the president boasted that he could solve the conflict in 24 hours, citing his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He claimed in March that he “was being a little sarcastic” with those assertions. 

In February, Trump and Vice President Vance had a verbal confrontation with Zelensky in the Oval Office, during which the president told the Ukrainian leader, “You don’t have the cards.” 

“Your country is in big trouble,” Trump told Zelensky at the time. “You’re not winning.” 

The dust-up scrapped plans for the two leaders to sign a deal giving the U.S. future shares of Ukrainian minerals in exchange for additional American funding for Kyiv’s fight against Russia. The agreement was eventually signed in April.  

But despite the president’s attempts to negotiate an end to the conflict, Russia has continued its attacks on Ukraine. Earlier this month, Trump told reporters he was “not happy about the whole situation.”

Last month, at a summit with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, Trump left without a ceasefire deal but called it a “very productive meeting.” Putin, without elaborating, said that Russia needs to eliminate the “primary roots” of the war. 

After the meeting, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that a reaching a peace agreement is up to Zelensky — who he met with three days after the summit, along with European leaders, at the White House. There has not been momentum since, though, toward a trilateral meeting between Trump, Zelensky and Putin. 

Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential election, previously said she would nominate the president for the Nobel Peace Prize if he were to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“If he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor, had to, in a way, validate Putin’s vision of greater Russia, but instead could really stand up to Putin, to make it clear there must be a ceasefire,” Clinton said in August.

“If President Trump were the architect of that, I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize,” she added.