Donald Trump recently announced how much time it will take him to know what Putin's motives are, prompting one conservative foreign relations expert to decode what Trump was really saying.
Former Republican Tom Nichols appeared on MSNBC for an extended interview over the weekend, and was asked about Trump's recent statement that he will decide what to do about the Russia-Ukraine cease-fire negotiations in a week and a half or two weeks.
Host Alex Witt, who in an earlier segment prodded Trump with a derogatory nickname, asked Nichols, "Do you really think it's going to take him a week and a half or so to figure out if he believes that Putin really wants to end the war?"
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Nichols responded by flagging what he called a "verbal tic" of the president.
"Well, first, it's important to remember that the president has this kind of verbal tic when he's stumped or trying to buy time, and it's always two weeks," he said. "It's two weeks or within a few [weeks]... it's a meaningless time schedule. It's just something he says."
Nichols continued by offering a sort of translation:
"That's a way of saying, 'I don't want to talk about this. It's embarrassing.' 'I'll figure it out in two weeks.' And, you know, hope that people pay attention to something else," the political analyst said.