In-town pool #7 — Russia, Biden remarks

Trump’s event with law enforcement officers in the Oval Office just wrapped up, but flagging a few snippets of questions Trump answered about his call with Putin this morning and on Biden’s recent cancer diagnosis. (Fuller quotes to come).

Trump said he thought the Pope getting involved in the peace talks w Russia-Ukraine did not mean the U.S. would be taking a lesser role in the negotiations, but he liked the idea of doing it at the Vatican—it would be “great”—saying it would add "some extra significance” to do it there.

He said there were "some big egos involved," and if he expects there will be some progress, but if there isn't, "I'm just going to back away." Trump said he told Putin, "We've got to get going." And he later, again, talked about stepping away if it doesn't look like there is going to be a peace deal.

He said that he did not bring up his previous TruthSocial appeal to Putin ("Vladimir, STOP!") on their call today. And he said he did have in his head a line at which he would stop U.S. involvement in the conflict, but refused to share, saying it would hurt negotiations.

Asked about Biden's diagnosis, he said it was "very sad, actually," later calling it "a very, very sad situation," saying that he felt "badly about it." But he also raised questions about why the cancer wasn't caught earlier, and why the public wasn't notified earlier, and tied it to questions he has long raised about Biden's mental fitness to serve as president.

Ashley Parker

Staff Writer | The Atlantic

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