❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, former President Barack Obama.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Tuesday, during a Cabinet meeting held in Washington, D.C.
💬KEY QUOTE: “We get a lot of bulls**t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” – Donald Trump
🎯IMPACT: Trump highlighted the differences in U.S. military aid to Ukraine under his administration compared to Obama’s, implying he will begin applying significantly more pressure to Russia if the Kremlin remains unserious about making peace.
President Donald J. Trump took a strong line on Russian leader Vladimir Putin during his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, calling out what he described as the Russian leader’s “bullshit” on the Ukraine war. “That was a war that should never have happened. And a lot of people are dying and it should end. And I don’t know, we get… we get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” he said.
Often portrayed as a Russia sympathizer or even a Russian puppet—without evidence—by his detractors, Trump stressed that his first administration was far more helpful to Ukraine than Barack Obama’s. “I gave them the Javelins. Remember? They said, ‘Trump gave them javelins and Obama gave them sheets.’ Right. They called Obama at that time, Barack Hussein Obama, if you haven’t heard, he did a terrible job,” Trump said.
In 2014, amid Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Obama administration opted to provide Ukraine with non-lethal assistance, including medical supplies and blankets. Trump, by contrast, approved the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine in 2017.
By referencing his first administration’s military support for Ukraine, Trump likely intended to imply that Russia could expect the U.S. to begin ramping up assistance to Ukraine again if the Kremlin remains unserious about making peace.
Trump also blamed former President Joe Biden’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan for emboldening Putin to invade Ukraine in 2022. “I think that had you not had the situation in Afghanistan, I don’t think Putin would have gotten in. I think when he looked at how stupid and incompetent that operation was, he said, ‘wow, this might be a chance,’” Trump argued.
Trump stressed that while European countries have contributed to supporting Ukraine, the United States has carried the heaviest burden. He ended by endorsing the resumption of certain defensive weapons shipments to Ukraine. “Putin is not treating human beings right. He’s killing too many people,” he emphasized.
On Wednesday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov struck a cautious tone on Trump’s statements, saying the Kremlin was “pretty calm about this.”
“Trump’s way of talking is generally quite harsh… [W]e plan to continue our dialogue with Washington to mend our broken bilateral relations [and] we hope that Trump and his team will continue their efforts to get the peace process back to the realm of diplomacy,” Peskov said.
In June, Trump adopted a harsh tone against Iran and especially Israel when a ceasefire between them appeared to be slipping away, ultimately pressuring them both into ending their operations.
President Trump: “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” pic.twitter.com/VMnXSTuCiK
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 8, 2025
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