President Donald Trump expressed mounting frustration Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, promising during a lively Cabinet meeting to boost U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
“We get a lot of bull— thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters, who attended a nearly two-hour stretch of the meeting. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
The comments echoed his remarks from Monday, when he described himself as “not happy” and “disappointed” with Putin’s actions. The last known conversation between the two leaders was last Thursday, July 3.
When asked about a reported pause of some weapons shipments to Ukraine, Trump seemed to dismiss the idea, saying he wanted to equip “brave” Ukrainians with defensive arms. Putin “is not treating human beings right,” he said. “He’s killing too many people, so we’re sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I’ve approved that.”
At last month’s NATO summit at The Hague, Trump suggested the U.S. was exploring options to send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine. “They do want to have the anti-missile missiles,” Trump said of Kyiv at the time. “As they call them, the Patriots, and we’re going to see if we can make some available.”
However, a subsequent shipment that included dozens of Patriot interceptors capable of defending against incoming Russian missiles was paused over concerns about low U.S. stockpiles, according to two defense officials, two congressional officials and two sources with knowledge of the decision. When pressed on who ordered the pause, Trump responded sharply: “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Trump also said on Tuesday that he was closely eyeing a sanctions bill targeting Russia, saying that he might support it.
U.S. officials had been attempting to broker a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, but negotiations have stalled in recent weeks. Trump had promised to resolve the conflict on the first day of his second term, though he has since claimed he was joking or exaggerating.
The Cabinet meeting, Trump’s sixth since taking office in January, covered a broad range of topics, including the recent Texas floods, tariff negotiations, U.S. strikes on Iran, Hunter Biden’s laptop and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Trump also launched into an extended screed about wind farms and a lengthy discussion about the artwork in the room.
Trump also discussed a meeting at the White House on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he defended amid his ongoing criminal trial. The two plan to meet again to focus on the Gaza conflict.
“He’s coming over later and we’re going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively, Gaza,” Trump said. “It’s a tragedy. And he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to get it solved.”
The meeting highlighted the absence of Elon Musk, once a key adviser who drove an initiative to streamline government efficiency. Musk, who spent a quarter-billion dollars to help elect Trump in 2024, according to campaign finance reports, has since parted ways with the administration and threatened to launch a third political party, a move that could challenge Republican prospects.
Trump appeared unfazed, responding, “I think it’ll help us.”
“It’ll probably— third parties have always been good for me, I don’t know about Republicans, but for me,” the president added.
