Awkwardness abounds at Trump Ukraine speech

Donald Trump delivered an address at a pro-Ukraine conference on Friday, calling President Obama “not strong” and saying Russian President Vladimir Putin “does not respect our president.”

More notable than what he said, however, was the way he said it.

{mosads}Giving his speech via satellite feed, Trump spoke slowly, put heightened emphasis on his words and took long pauses between each sentence, evidently under the impression that he had to wait for translators to interpret his remarks to the audience.

“You need not wait for any translation,” one of the conference moderators said at one point.

The video feed also apparently cut out several times on the businessman’s end, with Trump muttering “it cut out” and “it just cut out again, there’s no sound.”

“The sound system is terrible, because there’s a huge delay and there’s also a lot of feedback but I think everyone understands what I’m saying, I hope,” he said.

In the speech, Trump said that Putin’s lack of respect for Obama is indicative of the United States’ fallen status around the globe.

“It is a big problem… and it’s a problem that is taking place all over the world with respect to the United Sates,” he said. “There is a lack of respect for our president and there is a lack of respect for the government itself.”

The speech, given at the 12th annual Yalta European Strategy conference in Kiev, was touted as a major event at which the GOP primary candidate would show off his foreign policy credentials.

The conference, normally held in Yalta but moved to Kiev due to the Russian annexation of Crimea, was attended by pro-West diplomats, officials and scholars.

Trump’s foreign policy expertise has come into question recently, after he was unable to identify the heads of major terrorist organizations on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show.

Trump accused Hewitt of asking him “gotcha” questions.

The real estate mogul also called Hewitt, who will take part as a questioner in the GOP primary debate on CNN Sept. 16, a “third-rate radio announcer.”

–Updated 3:13 p.m.