'Misery, destruction and death': Trump's grim image of world in which U.S. is not 'feared'

Donald Trump compared life under President Joe Biden to a dystopian hell in a social media post dripping in dramatic imagery Friday.

The former president — who presided over the deaths of 425,000 Americans from COVID-19, nearly 20 percent of all worldwide deaths in his final 10 months in office — complained the world had become a grim and dismal place since he was replaced by Biden in January 2021.

"In just three and a half years under Crooked Joe Biden, the World has experienced Misery, Destruction, and Death," Trump posted. "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."

The former president and his allies have been attacking Biden as a "warmonger" for arming and aiding Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion, and Trump advisers have discussed a negotiated end to the war that would almost certainly require Ukraine to give up territory to its aggressor.

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Trump has also considered upending decades of U.S. foreign policy by redrawing the NATO alliance to require common defense only to nations that hit defense-spending goals, which aligns to his public attacks on member nations that have not spent as much as the U.S.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, attacked former President Trump's comment that he would encourage Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to U.S. allies who hadn't paid enough on defense.

"For God's sake, it's dumb," Biden said earlier this week. "It's shameful, it's dangerous."

In his address from the White House Tuesday, Biden accused Trump of having "bowed down to a Russian dictator," President Vladimir Putin with his recent comments deriding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

At a rally in South Carolina last week, Trump told attendees he would not protect NATO allies from Russia who "didn't pay."

Biden was quick to point out Tuesday that the military alliance of 31 nations, created to provide security against the then-Soviet Union, has been called upon just once to act on the mandate to assist should a member face armed attack.

"It was done to stand with America after we were attacked on 9/11," Biden said. "[Trump] doesn't see the alliance that protects America and the world — he sees a protection racket."

Biden, outraged that Trump should so address the Russian president, issued a warning to Putin and U.S. foreign adversaries he said likely "cheered" when they heard Trump's comment.

"As long as I'm president, if Putin attacks a NATO ally, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory," Biden said.