The New Republic Breaking News from Washington and beyond Most Recent Post Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling November 3, 2025 / 10:20 a.m. ET Share This Story

Trump Flails Trying to Distract From His Failure to Control Putin Donald Trump waved around pieces of paper touting his success rather than discuss Ukraine. Donald Trump waves while walking outside the White House Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty Images

Donald Trump is using an imaginary list of “wars” he’s solved to silence questions about his untenable relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The president refused to answer questions about why Putin was dragging his feet on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine during a sit-down interview with 60 Minutes Sunday. Instead, Trump pulled a propaganda-packed sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket to illustrate just how successful he thinks he’s been at solving international crises.

“So why won’t Putin end this war?” asked host Norah O’Donnell.

“But, Nora, that was Joe Biden’s war, not my war. I inherited that stupid war,” Trump responded, 11 months into his own presidency.

“But I brought just a little list of, look at this, wars,” Trump said.

“And you have branded yourself the peace president,” O’Donnell continued.

"Well I think I did pretty good, I solved eight of the nine wars I solved, you know how I solved them? I said, in many cases, in 60 percent, if you don’t stop fighting I’m putting tariffs on both of your countries and you’re not going to be able to do business in the United States,” Trump said.

“So why isn’t that working with Putin?” pressed O’Donnell.

“Uh, it is working with Putin, I think,” Trump said.

Trump has conceded quite a bit to the Russian dictator, to no avail. This summer, Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska, marking Putin’s first return to U.S. soil in more than a decade. After the theatrics were over, the two world leaders still failed to reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed, with Trump losing his cool while Putin demanded that Ukraine cede more territory to Russia.