President Donald Trump lost his patience with a reporter Monday as he met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office Monday to announce his plan to send Patriot missiles to help Ukraine defend itself from continued Russian onslaught.
The reporter asked Trump, "If Putin escalates further, how far are you willing to go in response?"
"Don't ask me a question like that," he snapped back.
"How far? I want to get the war settled."
Another reporter asked, "Is there a ceiling on what the Europeans are willing to pay for?"
"I will say that I spoke with Germany, spoke with most of the larger countries, and they are really enthusiastic about this. they want to and, you know, they're willing to go very far," Trump said. "I will tell you, you know, as for your question, how far would I go? They want to go very far. They don't want this to happen. That's why I think from Putin's standpoint, it would really be good...he's got to save his economy."
Trump also threatened "very severe" secondary tariffs if the two nations failed to reach a ceasefire deal within 50 days.
This marks Trump's toughest stance yet on Vladimir Putin after repeating that he was "very, very unhappy" with the Russian president for failing to come to an agreement on the costly war.
Trump said he spoke to Putin "a lot about getting this thing done," referring to ending the war in Ukraine.
But he didn't answer a reporter's direct question asking, "How did you tell Putin this was coming up?"
"My conversations with him are always very pleasant. I say, isn't that very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night. I go home, I tell the first lady, 'You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.' She said, 'Oh, really? Another city was just hit.'
"So, it's like, look, I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years. He's fooled a lot of people."
