Trump’s Entire Plan for U.S. Policy on Ukraine Is “Trust Me”

On Fox and Friends Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump somewhat clarified his murky plans for the Russia-Ukraine war, giving his word—notoriously fickle as it is— that there will be no U.S. troops on the ground.

Earlier in the week, the president met with EU leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Trump had also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska a few days before.

Trump on Monday couldn’t be pinned down on whether U.S. troops would be sent to aid Ukraine, merely stating that European countries would provide the “first line of defense” and “take a lot of the burden,” whereas the U.S. will “be involved” and provide “a lot of help.”

In his Tuesday morning Fox News appearance, he promised that there will be no American boots on the ground in Ukraine.

“Well, you have my assurance, you know, I’m president,” Trump said.

However, he added that European nations such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are willing to put “boots on the ground”—and claimed that they would not be acting as “a part of” NATO. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, to be honest with you,” the president said.

Trump also mentioned the possibility of providing U.S. air support to such European ground troops, saying, “We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you could talk about, by air.” He repeated that he doesn’t think this would “be a problem.”

It seems that, for now, Trump remains committed only to putting American boots on the ground in Democratic-run cities.

Representative Elise Stefanik was not well received when she returned to her district in upstate New York.

The congresswoman received a particularly hostile reception from her constituents during a ceremony in Plattsburg Monday evening. More than half of the attendees at the event, intended to mark the renaming of the Clinton County Government Center, were actually protesters, according to the local NBC affiliate NBC 5.

The crowd jeered at Stefanik both times she approached the podium, calling the staunch MAGA supporter a “traitor,” while others chanted, “Shame.”

“You sold us out,” cried one protester.

“You’re a Nazi,” shouted another.

Yet another protester yelled on repeat that Stefanik needed to “unseal the Epstein files.”

Stefanik chided the protesters, claiming that the renaming ceremony for her “dear friend” was the wrong time and place to attack her—but her constituents disagreed. Instead, they argued that Stefanik had been so absent in their district that they were left with no other choice.

“Well, Elise has not shown up in our district for months and months,” protester Mavis Agnew told NBC 5. “She won’t hold a town hall, she won’t take questions. She’s never in her office. People show up at her office constantly; door’s closed. Her representatives, her employees won’t talk to her.… So this was her first appearance, the first opportunity we had to let her know we’re unhappy.”

But Stefanik wasn’t willing to recognize that her support for Donald Trump’s agenda was the basis for her hometown hatred.

“It is a disgusting disgrace that this is what the far left does, rather than understanding that his family has been through a tremendous amount. It was about honoring his legacy,” Stefanik told NBC5 after the event, referring to John Zurlo, for whom the center was renamed.

Stefanik isn’t the only Trumpian legislator who has gotten scorched during the summer recess for voting against the needs of their constituents. Earlier this month, Nebraska Representative Mike Flood was excoriated during a town hall for failing to protect SNAP benefits, veterans’ programs, and health care access, which combined with voters’ simmering resentment for Flood’s lagging on the release of the Epstein files.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his meeting with Donald Trump Monday may have been their “best” yet—not a particularly high bar—but that doesn’t mean that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to play ball.

During CNN’s News Night Monday, Josh Rogin, lead global security analyst for CNN, said that it had certainly been a “much better meeting than the last time.”

“But I think it’d be going too far to say that Putin has agreed to a meeting with Zelenskiy,” Rogin added. “In fact, the Kremlin put out a statement right after this meeting and they said, ‘No, we’ll have meetings at a high level,’ but they didn’t say with Putin and Zelenskiy.”

Trump reportedly called Putin in the middle of his meeting with several European leaders to begin making arrangements for a trilateral summit between himself, Zelenskiy, and Putin. But as Rogin pointed out, Russia hasn’t actually agreed to such a meeting. In a statement, Moscow said only that the leaders had discussed “the idea of raising the level of Russian and Ukrainian representation in the negotiations.”

Rogin continued, “And then they said, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re totally against NATO troops in Ukraine.’ So, the two big deliverables out of this meeting, Russia has already rejected, which kind of gets to the core of the issue, which is President Trump said 50 times today that he believes Putin wants peace. And I don’t know, call me skeptical. I don’t think that’s true. I just don’t buy it.

“And I’m basing that on all the evidence. Everything Putin says. Everything Putin does. Everything we know. And that’s what you see those European leaders doing. They’re testing that. They’re saying to President Trump, ‘If he gives you a ceasefire, he’s gonna stop killing Ukrainians at least for a couple days, then maybe he’s serious. And if he doesn’t, then he’s not serious.”

At the end of the day, the clearest signal that Putin could give that he wants to end the killing is, well, to stop killing. But he hasn’t done that.

Trump already appears to have agreed with Putin’s demands to permanently seize Crimea, and to block Ukraine from its long-awaited NATO membership. Moscow has demanded even more territory from Ukraine, while Zelenskiy has insisted that his country will not cede land to Russia.

Donald Trump believes he’s added yet another peace agreement to his roster.

Speaking with Fox & Friends Tuesday morning about his efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, the president claimed that he had settled seven wars.

“I’ve solved seven wars. We ended seven wars,” Trump said. “I thought this would be one of the easier ones, and this has turned out to be the toughest one.”

“India, Pakistan, these were big ones, also. All big ones. And some going for 31, 32 years. One for 35 years,” he continued. “I got them all done. But this one is the one that is the most difficult, and I thought it would be an easy one. I hope President [Vladimir] Putin is gonna be good, and if he’s not it’s going to be a rough situation. And I hope that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility also. The thing is a mess.”

Trump has so far claimed responsibility for peace in several international conflicts, including between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda, between India and Pakistan, between Serbia and Kosovo, between Egypt and Ethiopia, and for “doing the Abraham Accords.”

But his sudden claim to have ended seven wars is especially remarkable, considering it’s up a digit from Monday, when he boasted on Truth Social that his actions had settled “6 wars in 6 months,” including “a possible Nuclear disaster.”

“I’m only here to stop it, not to prosecute it any further,” Trump said, blaming the Ukraine-Russia war on former President Joe Biden. “It would have NEVER happened if I was president.”

What’s more incredible: Trump posted Monday that his self-fulfilled accomplishments would be done without people who had long-term knowledge or expertise of Russia and Ukraine’s history, referring to such individuals as “STUPID.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t need the advice of people who have been working on all of these conflicts for years, and were never able to do a thing to stop them,” Trump wrote. “They are ‘STUPID’ people, with no common sense, intelligence, or understanding, and they only make the current R/U disaster more difficult to FIX. Despite all of my lightweight and very jealous critics, I’ll get it done—I always do!!!”

President Donald Trump thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has operated with impunity since he invaded Ukraine, is somehow now ready to come to the table.

A hot mic caught Trump suggesting under his breath that Putin was willing to negotiate after the two leaders met in Alaska for a summit.

“I think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand?” he said before his press conference with Zelenskiy. “As crazy as it sounds.”

It does sound crazy. Trump and Putin haven’t been able to make a deal for six months, and they certainly didn’t reach one last Friday.

Any “deal” that could come about would be without a ceasefire, something that has been a huge priority for Zelenskiy. It would also involve Ukraine ceding Crimea and promising to never join NATO, which would be more capitulation than agreement.

Putin has been lying outright to Trump, but one face-to-face meeting, likely accompanied by some surface-level flattery, has the president twirling his hair and hoping that Putin thinks fondly of him, all while the Russian president continues his assault on Ukrainian sovereignty.