President Donald Trump has acknowledged that Vladimir Putin has been playing the US, accusing his Russian counterpart of feeding him bulls--t.
In the latest sign of his growing frustration with Putin, Trump also said he was considering additional sanctions on Moscow, as he once again declared he was not happy with his Russian counterpart.
“We get a lot of bulls--t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “He’s very nice all the time but it turns out to be meaningless.”
The comments are among the strongest signs yet that Trump’s patience with Putin is wearing thin as the Russian authoritarian continues to drag out the war in Ukraine, something that Trump claimed he could end “on day one” of his presidency.
The president has also reportedly told advisers that Putin’s refusal to negotiate a ceasefire in good faith is making it harder for him to defend his friendly posture with Russia as Moscow continues to kill innocent Ukrainians.
And today, a week after the Pentagon said it would halt some shipments to Ukraine as part of a review of military aid, Trump said he would continue sending weapons to the country.
But asked who ordered the pause last week, he replied: “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”
“We want to put defensive weapons because Putin is not treating human beings right. He’s killing too many people. So we are sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine and I’ve approved that,” he told reporters.
The renewed movement of weapons came after Trump recently held a closed-door meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands. He later said he would see if he could make additional Patriot missiles available to Ukraine.
The shift is considerable for Trump, who has balked at getting tougher with Russia even as his allies warned him that Putin was taking America for a ride.
Last month, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham joined forces with Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal and dozens of other Republicans and Democrats to push for 500 percent tariffs on countries buying Russian oil, gas, and uranium.
“Putin, in my view, is playing us all,” Graham said at the time.
If eventually passed, it would target nations like China and India, which account for roughly 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade and bankroll much of its war effort.
Trump was not interested at the time, preferring instead to continue pushing for Putin to negotiate an end to the war.
Today, however, he said: “We talk about sanctions a lot,” and that Putin “understands that it may be coming.”
