‘Crooked as hell': Trump blasts James Comey over Russian collusion investigation
Mr Trump branded the two former intelligence heads as 'dishonest people'.
'They are crooked as hell ... I believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people,' he said.
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Sky News AU
26 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
President Trump sets 50 day deadline for Russia to make peace with Ukraine
US President Donald Trump has set a 50-day deadline for Russia to end its war with Ukraine. President Trump has committed to providing more weapons to Ukraine, as well as threatening Russia with more sanctions if it does not make peace by this deadline. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the US President, claiming Russia's finances must be cut off immediately.
9 News
33 minutes ago
- 9 News
Trump threatens Russia and boosts weapons for Ukraine
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here US President Donald Trump has threatened Russia with steep tariffs and announced a rejuvenated pipeline for American weapons to reach Ukraine, hardening his stance towards Moscow after months of frustration about unsuccessful negotiations for ending the war . The latest steps reflect an evolving approach from the Republican president, who promised to swiftly resolve the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin when he invaded Ukraine three years ago. Trump once focused his criticism on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he described as unwilling to compromise, but more recently has expressed growing irritation toward Putin. "My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night," Trump said. He complained that "it just keeps going on and on and on." US President Donald Trump has unveiled a new weapons pipeline to Ukraine. (AP) Trump said he would implement "severe tariffs" unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days. He provided few details on how they would be implemented, but he described them as secondary tariffs, meaning they would target Russia's trading partners in an effort to isolate Moscow in the global economy. In addition, Trump said European allies would buy "billions and billions" of dollars of US military equipment to be transferred to Ukraine, replenishing the besieged country's supplies of weapons. He made the announcement in the Oval Office alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Included in the plan are Patriot air defence systems, a top priority for Ukraine as it fends off Russian drones and missiles. Trump with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. (AP) Doubts were recently raised about Trump's commitment to supply Ukraine when the Pentagon paused shipments over concerns that US stockpiles were running low. Rutte said Germany, Finland, Canada, Norway, Sweden, the UK and Denmark would be among the buyers to supply Ukraine. He said "speed is of the essence here," and he suggested that some weapons would be rushed to Ukraine and later replaced with purchases from the US. Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and he repeatedly asserted that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. He also accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a "dictator without elections". But Russia's relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump's patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to "STOP!" launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader "has gone absolutely CRAZY!". While Rutte was in Washington, Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Joseph Keith Kellogg pose for a photo in Kyiv, Ukraine. (AP) Zelenskyy said he had "a productive conversation" with Kellogg about strengthening Ukrainian air defences, joint arms production and purchasing US weapons in conjunction with European countries, as well as the possibility of tighter international sanctions on the Kremlin. "We hope for the leadership of the United States, because it is clear that Moscow will not stop unless its ... ambitions are stopped by force," Zelenskyy said on Telegram. Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine's air defences are struggling to counter. June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1343 wounded, the UN human rights mission in Ukraine said. At the same time, Russia's bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 1000km front line. Trump confirmed the US is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defence missiles and that the European Union will pay the US for the "various pieces of very sophisticated" weaponry. Trump is reportedly growing frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) A senior Russian lawmaker, Konstantin Kosachev, said Trump's plan had "only one beneficiary – the US military-industrial complex." Germany has offered to finance two Patriot systems, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin. The country has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. A top ally of Trump, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict was nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia's full-scale invasion. Although Trump had previously dismissed the effort as a waste of US taxpayer money, Graham told CBS' Face the Nation that "you'll see weapons flowing at a record level." "One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump," he said. "And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there's going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table." Firefighters work at a destroyed apartment building after a Russian drone and missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's envoy for international investment who took part in talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington. "Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure," Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. "This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means." Although Trump proposed targeting Russia with new tariffs, he expressed doubts about bipartisan legislation to punish the country even further. "I'm not sure we need it," he said. "It could be very useful. We'll have to see." The legislation increases sanctions and places 500 per cent tariffs on products imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas and other exports. Trump on Monday proposed unilaterally implementing 100 per cent tariffs. "I use trade for a lot of things," he said. "But it's great for settling wars." Since December 5, 2022, when the European Union banned Russian oil, China has bought 47 per cent of Russia's crude oil exports, followed by India at 38 per cent. Turkey and the EU have each accounted for 6 per cent, according to the Centre for Research and Clean Air, a Finnish nonprofit that tracks the energy industry. Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow in China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, doubted that tariffs would change the course of the war. "Oil is fungible, and Russia has developed a nimble shadow fleet," he said. "So enforcement would be a challenge.'' However, the tariffs could still have a dramatic effect, depending on how they're implemented. Adding a 100 per cent tariff on China, on top of import taxes already in place, would essentially halt trade between the US and China, the world's two largest economies. CONTACT US
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
A gripping new thriller from the author who gives pulp fiction a good name
In Battle Mountain, he's 51, having aged along with the series since it began in 2002 with Open Season (when he was 32). Wife Marybeth, an active presence in every book, is now the director of the Twelve Sleep County Library, her research expertise regularly assisting Joe's investigations. And the little girls who sat on his knee in the early books are now young women making their ways in the world, away from home, their situations periodically foregrounded. Box's books can be read as stand-alone stories, but the series works best as a chronologically ordered account of Joe's life, the characters around him, and the changing face of rural America. Unlike Reacher, Joe is a stickler for the rules and his 'Dudley-Do-Right reputation' precedes him wherever he goes. That he is an honourable man can readily be seen in how he goes about his work and his life. When he comes across the state governor fishing without a licence in one of the early books, he tickets him the same way he would anybody else. When interviewing somebody he suspects of stepping out of line, he's learnt that a friendly opening – 'I guess you know why I'm here?' – is far more effective than a confrontation. He has a special dislike for trophy hunters, poachers, eco-terrorists and those who hunt out of season. Loading Again unlike Reacher, he's not skilled in the martial arts. He's not even a good shot when he grudgingly finds himself forced to take up arms, and he always needs help when the serious shooting starts. Which is where master falconer, former special forces operative and survivalist Nate Romanowski comes in. Introduced in Winter Kill (2003), he serves more or less the same function as Reacher does in Child's books. When he's accused of a crime he didn't commit, Joe stands by him, winning his undying loyalty. Simmering away beneath the surfaces of the stories is Box's dismay with the peculiarly American chaos that is also known as the state of the nation: the dangerous secret organisations festering around the fringes of its everyday life; the corrupt public officialdom that tarnishes its democracy; the plight of army veterans who've been exploited in hopeless foreign incursions; the hostility to migrants. In Battle Mountain, Marybeth's online investigations reveal that an FBI agent who has been asking after Joe and Nate had been engaged in several significant domestic terrorist events that have remained unhealed wounds on the American psyche (and that include the January 6 riots in the nation's capital). Nate is at the heart of the new book. Joe doesn't appear until page 51, although he and Marybeth are still central to the plot. Nate is bent on tracking down and wreaking vengeance upon Axel Soledad, a fellow special forces soldier gone rogue, who first appears in Shadows Reel (2022), and has been lying in wait ever since. As Box calmly and capably winds together the various plot threads, events unfold in a savage terrain littered with small towns, isolated farmhouses and shacks, and a tourist haven for privileged easterners known as the B-Lazy-U Ranch. At stake is what is described early on as not just a threat to the characters but dangers that could 'possibly alter the trajectory of the nation itself'. And like most of the preceding books in the series, it's unputdownable.
