US president Donald Trump has said that he is disappointed but not done with Vladimir Putin, in an exclusive phone call with the BBC.
Trump was pressed on whether he trusts the Russian leader, and replied: “I trust almost no-one.”
The US president was speaking hours after he announced plans to send weapons to Ukraine and warned of severe tariffs on Russia if there was no ceasefire deal in 50 days.
In a wide-ranging interview from the Oval Office, Trump also endorsed NATO, having once described it as obsolete, and affirmed his support for the organisation’s common defence principle.
The president made the 20-minute phone call to the BBC following discussions about a prospective interview to commemorate one year since the assassination attempt on his life at a Butler, Pennsylvania campaign event.
When asked if surviving the assassination attempt had affected him, Trump responded that he preferred to think about it as little as possible.
“I don’t like to think about if it did change me,” Trump said. Dwelling on it, he added, “could be life-changing”.
Having just met with NATO chief Mark Rutte at the White House, the president spent a considerable chunk of the interview expressing his disappointment with the Russian leader.
Trump stated that he believed a deal with Russia was imminent four times.
When asked by the BBC whether he was done with Putin, the president responded, “I’m disappointed in him, but I’m not done with him. But I’m disappointed in him.”
Asked how Trump would get Putin to “stop the bloodshed”, the US president said, “We’re working it, Gary.”
“We’ll have a great conversation. I’ll say, ‘That’s good; I’ll think we’re close to getting it done,’ and then he’ll knock down a building in Kyiv.”
The discussion then shifted to NATO, which Trump has repeatedly lambasted as “obsolete”.
When asked if he still believed this was the case, he replied, “No. I believe NATO is now becoming the inverse of that because the alliance was “paying their own bills”.
He stated he still believed in collective defence since it allowed smaller countries to defend themselves against bigger ones.
President Trump was also asked about the United Kingdom’s global future, and he stated it was a “great place – you know I own property there”.
He expressed excitement for his unique second state visit to the United Kingdom in September of this year.
On what he hoped to accomplish during the visit, Trump stated, “Have a good time and respect King Charles, because he’s a great gentleman.”
