‘He doesn’t want the war to stop’: Donald Trump finally admits Putin is ‘tapping’ him along,  and we’re not shocked

It seems Donald Trump has finally had his epiphany. Putin might not be his best buddy after all. 

In a rare moment of clarity, Trump admitted that Putin “might be tapping me along.” For a man who prides himself on “winning,” this realization must sting. Trump’s sudden frustration with Putin isn’t born out of moral outrage or a newfound sense of justice. No, it’s because Putin is making him look bad, and if there’s one thing Donald Trump cannot stand, it’s looking bad.

The epiphany occurred after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Pope Francis’s funeral. The White House was quick to slap a “very productive” sticker on the meeting. Zelenskyy, ever the optimist, called the discussion “symbolic” and hinted at its potential to be “historic.” Their previous encounter, back in February, was more frosty. Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, reportedly berated Zelenskyy for not being grateful enough for U.S. aid.

Fast forward to now, and Trump is still fumbling the diplomacy ball. After the Vatican meeting, he took to his social media echo chamber, Truth Social, to air his grievances about Putin’s recent missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. “Too many people are dying!!!” he lamented. Trump then suggested Putin “has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’” The question mark says it all, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff spent three hours in Moscow with Putin on Friday discussing America’s peace proposal. According to reports, the US proposal essentially allows Russia to keep everything they’ve stolen—including Crimea, which they illegally annexed back in 2014. If this sounds like a bad deal to you, that’s because it is. Zelenskyy has made it crystal clear that Ukraine’s constitution requires the restoration of all occupied territories. Yet here comes Trump, waving a proposal that essentially tells Ukraine to just let it go.

To make matters worse, Moscow hasn’t even agreed to the deal. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that all Ukrainian troops had been forced out of Russia’s Kursk region. Trump, for his part, has warned that the U.S. will pull back its mediation efforts if progress isn’t made soon. For years, Trump downplayed Putin’s aggressions, even going so far as to say he trusted the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies. Now, as he scrambles to broker a peace deal, he’s discovering that Putin isn’t the loyal friend he imagined.