Donald Trump let slip a few wild details from his “great” call with Putin – and back home he’s fully at war with most of the US Judiciary – here’s the most unhinged things he’s said or done in the last 24 hours
Donald Trump has spoken to both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky in the the last 24 hours.
Despite the official claim that it was “great”, the first call, it’s clear, didn’t end the way he hoped.
There will be no 30-day, unconditional ceasefire. And even the limited infrastructure ceasefire seems like it might have been broken before it really got started.
We haven’t heard much from the Zelensky call yet, other than that it was also “great.”
But aside from the official statements on what was discussed between Trump and Putin – we gained some…insight into the actual focus of discussions from an interview the US President did with Fox News’ (who else?) Laura Ingram last night.
Here’s the wildest bits of that, and some other unhinged things Trump did or said over the last day or so.
1. Trump is keen to do more trade with Russia – presumably scrapping sanctions
The President told Fox News’ Laura Ingram: “He’s looking to get along, and we’re looking to get along with him.
“We have a problem of trade, where we have a very big imbalance with China. With Russia we don’t have that much trade and they’d like to, and we’d like to also.”
To be clear here, the reason the US doesn’t have very much trade with Russia is because of sanctions and export controls imposed in February 2022, following the illegal invasion of Ukraine.
“They have some very valuable things for us,” he added.
“Including some very big forms of rare earth. They have a lot of earth, you know? They have a big chunk of real estate, you know, the biggest. Actually the biggest in the world for a country by far. And on that they have things we could use, frankly, and that other countries could use.”
2. Trump, again, lied about Russia having Ukrainian soldiers under siege
Trump has, for a few days, been repeating a bizarre claim about Russia having thousands of Ukrainian soldiers under siege. It’s obviously not true.
“AT THIS VERY MOMENT, THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY, AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION,” he wrote on social media on Friday.
It wasn’t true then – but was probably a reference to the evacuation of about 10,000 troops from Kursk.
Our team has a good understanding of the situation in Kursk. There are no encircled troops,” the founder of Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group said.
“The retreat was generally organized but occasionally chaotic. There is no threat of encirclement, and no evidence suggests otherwise. It’s wise to rely on intelligence, not Putin’s word.”
Still, he repeated the claim yesterday, when it was if anything even less true.
“Russia has the advantage, as you know,” he said. “They have encircled about 2,500 soldiers. They’re nicely encircled, and that’s not good. And we want to get it over with.”
He added: “There are no Americans involved. There could be if we end up in World War III over this, which is so ridiculous, but strange things happen.”
3. He tried to dodge a slapdown from the Chief Justice
So yesterday the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had a pop at Trump for suggesting judges that strike down his policies should be impeached.
It comes after federal judge James Boasberg called a halt to the White House’s plan to deport suspected gang members to El Salvador without due process.
Given these are suspects – not convicts – and El Salvador’s prison system is notoriously brutal, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when a judge struck it down.
But Trump was furious when it happened, launching a screed on social media attacking the judge and calling for his impeachment.
“HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING!” he wrote. “I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do.”
Removing a federal judge through impeachment is exceptionally rare – it’s only done in cases of “high crimes and misdemeanours”, like obvious corruption, and requires two votes in congress to convict.
It’s only ever been tried 15 times, and only 8 were found guilty.
And Chief Justice John Roberts, the country’s most senior judge, reminded the President of that fact yesterday, saying: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
He said the “normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Asked about it in his Fox News interview, Trump weirdly appeared to claim the Chief Justice wasn’t really talking about him.
“He didn’t mention my name in the statement,” he said. “I just saw it quickly. He didn’t mention my name. But many people have called for…the impeachment of this judge. He’s radical left, he was Obama appointed.”
4. He’s also annoyed that a judge is making life harder for DOGE
While we’re on the subject of troublesome judges, a federal judge found on Tuesday that Elon Musk’s bully boys shutting down USAID was likely to be unconstitutional.
US District Judge Theodore Chuang granted a preliminary injunction, saying DOGE had probably violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and separation of powers – ordering the Musk Squad to reinstate access to email, payment and IT systems to all current USAID employees and contractors.
And he blocked them from firing any more workers, closing any offices or deleting any websites. In fact, he ordered there should be no further action of any kind against USAID without the “express authorization” of an agency official with legal authority to take the action.
Asked about it by Laura Ingram, Trump said: “Look at the fraud that we’ve caught. We’ve caught so much fraud.”
DOGE has, at this point, caught no fraud.
Trump added there are “rogue judges who are destroying our country”.
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5. He keeps talking about Canada like Putin talks about Ukraine
Again, during his Fox interview, he spoke about Canada in much the same terms as Putin talks about Ukraine – effectively denying it’s a real country.
Asked why he’s tougher with Canada than on some of America’s biggest adversaries, Trump said: “Only because it’s meant to be our 51st state.”
He went on to say Canada is “one of the nastiest countries to deal with”.
