On Tuesday, when asked about the matter, Trump said, "We get a lot of bulls--- thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."
"Another reversal from Donald Trump today after a seemingly humiliating call during which he admitted he again made zero progress," MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said.
"Getting to this took maybe the clearest, most obvious sign yet that Putin doesn't want peace," Wallace continued, noting that he launched "the largest air attack against Ukraine since the start of the war, just hours after his call with Donald J. Trump."
The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum said that, despite Trump's anger with Putin, he still seems to be laying on compliments while halting the issuance of new sanctions on Russia.
It's one of several things she said is "sending a message to the Russians, telling them, essentially, that the U.S. isn't playing the game anymore, and they're welcome to keep going. And that's why Putin is still going. That's why he's stepping up his attacks."
She was speaking to Wallace from Warsaw, Poland, and noted that Europeans see Trump making concessions to Putin.
"And then, somehow, Trump is surprised when Putin laughs at him and continues fighting, even though he said he seemed to believe that he said he wouldn't," said Applebaum.
Wallace wondered if there was a strategic play to move Trump away from the Russians while he's being "so publicly ignored. And it would seem Putin's laughing at him. He gets off the phone and bombs the you-know-what out of Ukraine after Trump asks him not to. I mean, is there any consideration given to playing this very public humiliation of Donald Trump that Vladimir Putin is clearly enjoying?"
Applebaum said that many Republican senators have pushed back on Trump "for a long time."
After a commercial break, Wallace recalled Trump being asked who he turns to for advice, and Trump said "himself" and his "big brain."
Commentator John Heilemann called Trump a "pouty little snowflake," who "sounds like a 14-year-old who's just been learning the hard way that the quarterback, the varsity quarterback, just is not into her — or into him. Whichever. It's just, it's the most infantile kind of pathetic display."
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