‘He didn't fool me': Four words from Donald Trump that say so, so much

News.com.au

16-07-2025

Three quotes here, all uttered by Donald Trump after he took office in January, and all referring to Vladimir Putin.
'I believe he wants peace. I mean, I know him very well. Yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn't.'
'I think he'll keep his word. I've spoken to him, I've known him for a long time now, you know? I don't believe he is going to violate his word.'
'I believe him. I think we're doing very well with Russia, and right now they're bombing the hell out of Ukraine. I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine.'
And here is another, from this week, which came as Mr Trump finally lost patience with Putin's doublespeak.
'He's fooled a lot of people. He fooled Bush, he fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me.'
A bit shameless, isn't it? This man's capacity to revise history so blatantly, and to expect everyone to accept it, as though we have neither eyes, nor ears, nor functioning brains.
Putin did fool George W. Bush, who after meeting the Russian leader, claimed to have gotten 'a sense of his soul' and said he was 'very trustworthy'.
He did at least somewhat fool Barack Obama, who got then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton to pose for a stunt with an obnoxious red 'reset button', representing the relationship between America and Russia. That predictably doomed move fell over when Crimea happened.
Joe Biden? Hmm. He did agree to attend a summit with Putin during his presidency, which felt naive at the time. But the Biden administration was unequivocal about Russia's intentions in the lead-up to its invasion of Ukraine.
So there is plenty to criticise in other US presidents' approaches to the Putin regime. But that last part, the 'he didn't fool me', takes some goddamn cheek.
Nothing any of the presidents above said or did comes close to rivalling the credulousness with which Mr Trump has approached Putin, one of the most nakedly malicious leaders on the planet, since he first took power in 2017.
And this goes right to the heart of the eternal, perhaps unanswerable question about Donald Trump: Does he actually believe his own rhetoric? When he says something brazenly false, as is his habit, is he doing it cynically, with the knowledge that enough people will believe him anyway? Or has he convinced himself it's the truth?
Put in context: does Mr Trump genuinely think Putin did not outfox him, did not string him along with fake talk of peace for months? Or is the American President saying such nonsense with full self-awareness, to cover up his own embarrassment?
The shift in stance from the Trump administration this week is an improvement. It's a recognition, seven years after Mr Trump met Putin in Helsinki and took his word over that of his own country's intelligence agencies, that the murderous Russian dictator with a record of breaking nearly every pledge he makes might not be trustworthy.
So in relative terms, OK. Good, even. If American policy towards Russia is on a spectrum, with exploitable innocence on one end and cynicism on the other, we are at least heading in the right direction.
In absolute terms though? Pissweak. A 50-day deadline, after which new sanctions might be imposed unless Putin agrees to a peace deal. Why not impose those sanctions now? The man has lied to you for months, Donald. At no point has he displayed anything resembling good faith. Why give him the leeway of a delay? Do it now.
We've already seen Putin bomb Ukraine again since Mr Trump's announcement. He hardly seems worried. And honestly, why should he be? He's dealing with a serial flip-flopper, whose record indicates he'll sooner push back a deadline than enforce it.
And he's dealing with an American President who seeks to project strength, but even in his own telling comes off as credulous and manipulable.
'I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done,' he said of Putin, and a peace deal, while speaking to reporters after completing the flip-flop.
'And I always hang up and say, 'Well, that was a nice phone call.' And then missiles are launched into Kyiv, or some other (Ukrainian) city. And I say, 'Strange.'
'And after that happens three or four times, you say the talk doesn't mean anything.'
No s***.
He has retold a version of that anecdote several times, with First Lady Melania Trump usually serving as the unlikely snap back to reality.
'We thought we had a deal. Numerous times. I'd get home, I'd say, 'First Lady, I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir. I think we're finished.'' As in, finished hammering out a viable path to peace between Russia and Ukraine.
'And then I'll turn on the television. Or she'll say to me one time, 'Wow, that's strange, because they just bombed a nursing home.' I said, 'What?''
What's the fictional equivalent here? Mon Mothma gets off the holo-phone with Emperor Palpatine. 'That was a really wonderful talk I had with Palpatine,' she tells some other rebel bigwig. 'Wow, that's strange, because he just blew up Alderaan,' her colleague replies.
To which Mothma, would-be leader of the free worlds, offers an impotent: 'What!?' Before proceeding to publicly insist she was the only rebel leader to never be fooled by Palpatine.
(Do watch Andor. Wonderfully written show, regardless of your politics. No I will not stop sneaking TV recommendations into serious rants about serious politics.)
Look, there are two elements here. One is US policy towards Russia, which has improved a bit. Second is Mr Trump's personality, which at the age of 79 is probably set in carbonite.
The man's hatred of his political opponents, or for anyone who dares to criticise him, is one thing. Plenty to dissect there. But the shamelessness with which he can lie through his teeth to his own supporters, and mock the intelligence of the people who gave him the power he now wields? That, more than anything he could ever say or do to the Democrats or the media, speaks to his character.
Twice this week, we have seen it in action, once with the Putin backflip, and again with his attitude towards the Jeffrey Epstein case.
'I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody,' Mr Trump said today when asked about the backlash against his sudden indifference within MAGA.
'It's pretty boring stuff. It's sordid, but it's boring. And I don't understand why it keeps going. I think, really, only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going.'
Boring, is it? The years-long, unchecked, unprosecuted sex trafficking of minors to the rich and powerful? You find that boring?
Only Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were charged. All their clients are free without consequence. An election campaign last year in which Mr Trump and his associates eagerly fed the conspiracy theories. And now Mr Trump cannot comprehend why people still talk about it.
Nor can he understand the dissatisfaction of those who were promised a reckoning by his own confidants – Vice President J.D. Vance, Attorney-General Pam Bondi, head honchos of the FBI Kash Patel and Dan Bongino – only to be told to 'move on' without any result.
The blow-up over Epstein, this past fortnight, is of Mr Trump's making. His handpicked officials said they were practically drowning in Epstein-related material never before seen by the public. His officials released what they called 'phase one' of documents to selected right-wing influencers, implying more phases were coming. His Attorney-General said the Epstein 'client list', long sought by the cranks, was on her desk for review.
Now they say there never was any client list, and no more material will be released, and no third parties will be pursued, and Mr Trump's contemptuous reaction boils down to: 'Why do you even care?'
It's insulting.
And so is his rhetoric concerning Putin.
Mr Trump told his supporters he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, if not before. He has since sought to brush that off as a joke, as though we all have the memory of a goldfish, and cannot recall the dozens – no, sorry, hundreds – of times he said it without a hint of humour.
It's the Trump playbook now, apparently. Say something ridiculous. Have it blow up in your face. Pretend it never happened. Assume your followers will accept it unquestioningly.
'Look, it's clear from what the President himself has said – although he wouldn't put it this way – that he got played by Putin, and dragged on for months,' the longtime chief political analyst for Fox News, Brit Hume, said this week.
'And he was being jollied along under the impression, that Putin had obviously given him, that Putin wanted to end the war, and was prepared to negotiate from where we are.
'And it's pretty clear now that Putin didn't want to end the war where we are. He had more conquests in mind, and perhaps wanted his whole original purpose of taking Ukraine.'
We all bloody knew it, the whole time. Hume knew it, I knew it, you probably knew it. Putin certainly knew it. The only man in the dark, the only man of actual consequence fooled, was the one with genuine power to act.