Donald Trump’s self-advertised credentials for solving the Russia-Ukraine war: his ability to constantly get played.
Speaking to reporters during a White House lunch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy Friday, Trump attempted to instill confidence in his negotiating tactics by describing himself as a sucker.
“Aren’t you concerned that maybe the Russian president is trying to buy himself more time?” asked a reporter.
“I am, but you know, I’ve been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well,” Trump said. “A little time … I’m pretty good at this stuff.”
Despite spending months boasting about his cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump has pulled an aboutface in his public stance on the foreign conflict in recent weeks. Last month, Trump claimed that Ukraine could reclaim all of its occupied territory, and earlier this week, he threatened to deliver Tomahawk missiles—which have a range of more than 1,500 miles—to Kyiv should Russia not end its assault.
However, seated feet away from the Ukrainian leader Friday, Trump began to waffle about sharing American munitions, expressing to the room that he was concerned about America’s diminishing supply.
“We’d much rather have them not need Tomahawks. We’d much rather have the war be over,” Trump said. “It could mean a big escalation. It could mean a lot of bad things could happen.”
The two world leaders openly negotiated on the arms while in front of reporters, with Zelenskiy suggesting that Ukraine could support the development of more drones in exchange for the missiles, which would give Kyiv power to strike far beyond Moscow.
MAGA politics neatly align with Russian interests. Halfway across the world, between the borders of America’s cold war nemesis, elements of the MAGA agenda have already been perfected: being gay or transgender is illegal, the majority of the country identifies homogeneously as Orthodox Christians, and NATO is a loathed institution rather than a celebrated one.
But even their closely synced political ideologies could not broker an arrangement when Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska this summer. After the theatrics were over, the two world leaders failed to reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed, with Trump losing his cool while Putin demanded that Ukraine cede more territory to Russia, according to a bombshell report published by Financial Times Friday.
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