Donald Trump finally called “bullshit” on Vladimir Putin this week, though nobody seems to quite know what it means. One explanation, and perhaps the best one, is that Trump, belatedly, recognized what has long been apparent to the rest of us:
that Putin has been playing him, pretending to talk peace while escalating Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. On Monday, Trump announced that he was “not happy with President Putin at all” and overruled his own Pentagon to re-start arms shipments to Ukraine.
A day later, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump said bluntly, “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin,” observing that when the two talk—as they have frequently in recent months—he’s “very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Soon enough, the Wall Street Journal editorial board was praising Trump’s “pivot on Mr. Putin.” One could practically hear the sighs of relief in European capitals. In Kyiv, Ukrainian officials welcomed the news,
even if they were understandably wary. On Capitol Hill, Republicans seized the moment to announce that they now expected to call a vote as soon as this month on bipartisan legislation—co-sponsored by more than eighty senators—that would allow Trump to impose a crippling tariff of up to five hundred per cent on countries that purchase Russian oil, gas, or uranium.
On Wednesday, the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, revealed the plans to move ahead with the bill. Lindsey Graham, who has been the measure’s chief proponent in the Senate, claimed that Trump “is ready for us to act,” though an unnamed White House official told Politico that the Administration still had qualms about being “micromanaged” by Congress on foreign policy.
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