Trump says he's ‘not happy' with Putin and blames him for ‘killing a lot of people' in Ukraine
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he's 'not happy' with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine is 'killing a lot of people' on both sides.
'I'm not happy with him, I can tell you that much right now. This is killing a lot of people,' Trump said of Putin during a meeting with his Cabinet.
The president also acknowledged that his previous suggestions that he might be able to cajole Russia's president into bringing the fighting to a close and quickly ending the war in Ukraine has 'turned out to be tougher.'
It was notable for a president who has all but aligned himself with Putin at moments in the past and has praised the Russian leader effusively at times — though less so in recent months.
The Cabinet meeting comments came a day after Trump said the United States will now send more weapons to Ukraine — dramatically reversing a previous announcement of a pause in critical, previously approved firepower deliveries to Kyiv in the midst of concerns that America's own military stockpiles have declined too much.
'We wanted (to) put defensive weapons (in). Putin is not, he's not treating human beings right,' Trump said during the Cabinet meeting, explaining the pause's reversal. 'It's killing too many people. So we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine and I've approved that.'
Trump's decision to remove the pause follows his privately having expressed frustration with Pentagon officials for announcing a halt in some deliveries last week — an action he felt wasn't properly coordinated with the White House, according to three people familiar with the matter.
But the president refused to provide more details on that matter Tuesday.
'I don't know,' he said sarcastically to a reporter who pressed him on the weapons pause's original approval. 'Why don't you tell me?'
Still, his expressing open displeasure with Putin — especially after approving a resumption of U.S. weapons to Ukraine — underscores how much Trump's thinking on Russia and Ukraine policy has shifted since he returned to the White House in January. It also lays bare how tricky navigating the ongoing conflict has proved to be.
Trump suggested during last year's campaign that he could quickly end the Russia-Ukraine war. But by April, he was using his Truth Social account to exhort Putin to end military strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
'Vladimir, STOP!' he wrote. But large-scale Russian attacks on Ukraine have continued since then and Trump's public pronouncements on Putin have continued to sour.
Trump said after a call last week with Putin that he was unhappy with Russia's president and 'I don't think he's looking to stop' the war. Then, speaking at the start of a dinner he hosted for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday night, Trump said, 'I'm not happy with President Putin at all.'
Asked during Tuesday's Cabinet meeting what his growing displeasure with Putin might mean for U.S. foreign policy, Trump declined to discuss specifics.
'I will say, the Ukrainians were brave. But we gave them the best equipment ever made,' Trump said. He also said that without U.S. weapons and military support, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 might have otherwise sparked what 'probably would have been a very quick war.'
'It would have been a war that lasted three or four days,' he said, 'but they had the benefit of unbelievable equipment.'
Will Weissert, The Associated Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Another day, another Trump tariff threat
Opinion We apologize. We apologize deeply for going back to the same ground we worked in our July 11 editorial, when we said, about U.S. President Donald Trump's 50 per cent tariff levy on Brazil, 'It was Canada a couple of weeks ago, when Trump was railing about the unfairness of a Canadian dairy tariff that he actually agreed to in the last Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade pact and that hasn't been levied, and it's Brazil's turn now. And it will be Canada again.' Because it is Canada. Again. Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday night, on his own social media outlet, Trump posted a letter that he was sending to Prime Minister Mark Carney, decrying drugs 'pouring into our Country' from Canada, and complaining about the aforementioned tariff on dairy products. (Which American dairy exporters would face if they reached certain export levels — which they never have reached, and hence, are tariffs they never have paid. But why bother to worry about facts?) The letter starts out 'It is a great honour for me to send you this letter in that it demonstrates the strength and commitment of our trading relationship, and the fact that the United States has agreed to continue working with Canada, despite Canada having financially retaliated against the United States…' Trump then goes on to say that he is ordering a 35 per cent tariff on Canadian products to come into effect on Aug. 1, over and above tariffs already announced on steel, aluminum and auto parts, and threatens to increase that rate if Canada retaliates with tariffs of its own. It doesn't explain whether, like his last threat of 10 per cent or 20 per cent, the tariff only applies to products outside the CUSMA trade agreement. 'If Canada works with me to stop the flow of fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter. These tariffs may be modified upwards or downwards, depending on our relationship with your country. You will never be disappointed with the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter.' Far from never being disappointed, we are, in fact, deeply disappointed with the United States of America. Or, at least, with its threatener-in-chief. He does not negotiate in good faith, he changes his demands and the reasons for them at the drop of a hat, and seems to think that disrupting global trade, roiling global financial markets and upending relationships with long-standing friendly nations is somehow 'doing business.' It's not. At this point, we should be looking at cutting our losses in the best way we can. It's time to leave Trump behind: we can make nice in trade talks, do our best to mollify a president who can't even be bothered to use facts to bolster his 'national security' tariffs, but in every possible way, we should be moving to separate ourselves from trade with the United States under Trump. Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. We should avoid American products, decline to vacation or travel in the United States, and refuse to absorb American tariffs into the prices Canadian sellers charge American customers. Americans should feel the full cost of their president's unilateral 'negotiations.' As well, we should look to enter trade agreements with nations that negotiate honestly and fairly, and that then live up to the terms and spirit of those negotiations. And move every bit of trade we can to those countries. It took just seven hours from when our earlier editorial was written until Trump proved the editorial's central thesis to be correct: 'There is a simple truth President Trump is making more and more clear with each passing day and each passing edict. If you give in to blackmail, the blackmailer will just come back later for more.' He'll be back, demanding even more. Depend on it.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Trump, officials questioned about Texas flood response
As U.S. President Donald Trump toured the devastation from the deadly Texas floods, he and other officials faced questions about the state and federal government's response to the disaster.
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
DOGE sprouts in red states, as governors embrace the cost-cutter brand and make it their own
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The brash and chaotic first days of President Donald Trump 's Department of Government Efficiency, once led by the world's richest man Elon Musk, spawned state-level DOGE mimicry as Republican governors and lawmakers aim to show they are in step with their party's leader. Governors have always made political hay out of slashing waste or taming bureaucracy, but DOGE has, in some ways, raised the stakes for them to show that they are zealously committed to cutting costs. Many drive home the point that they have always been focused on cutting government, even if they're not conducting mass layoffs. 'I like to say we were doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing,' Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in announcing her own task force in January. Critics agree that some of these initiatives are nothing new and suggest they are wasteful, essentially duplicating built-in processes that are normally the domain of legislative committees or independent state auditors. At the same time, some governors are using their DOGE vehicles to take aim at GOP targets of the moment, such as welfare programs or diversity, equity and inclusion programs. And some governors who might be eyeing a White House run in 2028 are rebranding their cost-cutting initiatives as DOGE, perhaps eager to claim the mantle of the most DOGE of them all. No chainsaws in the states At least 26 states have initiated DOGE-style efforts of varying kinds, according to the Economic Policy Institute based in Washington, D.C. Most DOGE efforts were carried out through a governor's order — including by governors in Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma — or by lawmakers introducing legislation or creating a legislative committee. The state initiatives have a markedly different character than Trump's slash-and-burn approach, symbolized by Musk's chainsaw-brandishing appearance at a Conservative Political Action Committee appearance in February. Governors are tending to entrust their DOGE bureaus to loyalists, rather than independent auditors, and are often employing what could be yearslong processes to consolidate procurement, modernize information technology systems, introduce AI tools, repeal regulations or reduce car fleets, office leases or worker headcounts through attrition. Steve Slivinski, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who researches state government regulatory structures, said that a lot of what he has seen from state-level DOGE initiatives are the 'same stuff you do on a pretty regular basis anyway' in state governments. States typically have routine auditing procedures and the ways states have of saving money are 'relatively unsexy,' Slivinski said. And while the state-level DOGE vehicles might be useful over time in finding marginal improvements, 'branding it DOGE is more of a press op rather than anything new or substantially different than what they usually do,' Slivinski said. Analysts at the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute say that governors and lawmakers, primarily in the South and Midwest, are using DOGE to breathe new life into long-term agendas to consolidate power away from state agencies and civil servants, dismantle public services and benefit insiders and privatization advocates. 'It's not actually about cutting costs because of some fiscal responsibility,' EPI analyst Nina Mast said. Governors promoting spending cuts Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry rebranded his 'Fiscal Responsibility Program' as Louisiana DOGE, and promoted it as the first to team up with the federal government to scrub illegitimate enrollees from welfare programs. It has already netted $70 million in savings in the Medicaid program in an 'unprecedented' coordination, Landry said in June. In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt — who says in a blurb on the Oklahoma DOGE website that 'I've been DOGE-ing in Oklahoma since before it was cool' — made a DOGE splash with the first report by his Division of Government Efficiency by declaring that the state would refuse some $157 million in federal public health grants. The biggest chunk of that was $132 million intended to support epidemiology and laboratory capacity to control infectious disease outbreaks. The Stitt administration said that funding — about one-third of the total over an eight-year period — exceeded the amount needed. The left-leaning Oklahoma Policy Institute questioned the wisdom of that, pointing to rising numbers of measles and whooping cough cases and the rocky transition under Stitt of the state's public health lab from Oklahoma City to Stillwater. Oklahoma Democrats issued rebukes, citing Oklahoma's lousy public health rankings. 'This isn't leadership,' state Sen. Carri Hicks said. 'It's negligence.' Stitt's Oklahoma DOGE has otherwise recommended changes in federal law to save money, opened up the suggestion box to state employees and members of the general public and posted a spreadsheet online with cost savings initiatives in his administration. Those include things as mundane as agencies going paperless, refinancing bonds, buying automated lawn mowers for the Capitol grounds or eliminating a fax machine line in the State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order in February creating a task force of DOGE teams in each state agency. In the order, DeSantis recited 10 points on what he described as his and Florida's 'history of prudent fiscal management' even before DOGE. Among other things, DeSantis vowed to scrutinize spending by state universities and municipal and county governments — including on DEI initiatives — at a time when DeSantis is pushing to abolish the property taxes that predominantly fund local governments. His administration has since issued letters to universities and governments requesting reams of information and received a blessing from lawmakers, who passed legislation authorizing the inquiry and imposing fines for entities that don't respond. After the June 30 signing ceremony, DeSantis declared on social media: 'We now have full authority to DOGE local governments.' Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched her cost-cutting Arkansas Forward last year, before DOGE, and later said the state had done the 'same thing' as DOGE. Her administration spent much of 2024 compiling a 97-page report that listed hundreds of ways to possibly save $300 million inside a $6.5 billion budget. Achieving that savings — largely by standardizing information technology and purchasing — would sometimes require up-front spending and take years to realize savings. ___ Follow Marc Levy on X at:
