Trump downplays possibility of sending Ukraine long-range weapons as it struggles to repel Russia
Trump offered a more cautious tone on what to expect after he threatened Russia a day earlier with steep tariffs if President Vladimir Putin doesn't act within 50 days to end the three-year conflict. He also on Monday announced plans to bolster Kyiv's stockpile by selling American weapons to NATO allies who would in turn send arms to Ukraine.
Providing Ukraine with more long-range weaponry would give Kyiv the chance to strike further into Russian territory, a move that some in Ukraine and the U.S. have said could help push Putin toward negotiations to end the fighting.
Asked if he intended to supply Ukraine with weapons that could reach deeper into Russian territory, Trump replied, 'We're not looking to do that.' He made the remarks to reporters before departing the White House for an energy investment event in Pittsburgh.
While Trump's threats of weapons, sanctions and tariffs mark the most substantive pressure he's placed on Putin since returning to office nearly six months ago, some lawmakers said they remain concerned that the administration, with the 50-day deadline, is giving Putin time to grab even more Ukrainian territory.
Sens. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, and Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said waiting 50 days before imposing sanctions on Russia would give Putin more time to gain an advantage in the war.
'The 50-day delay worries me that Putin would try to use the 50 days to win the war, or to be better positioned to negotiate a peace agreement after having murdered and potentially collected more ground,' said Tillis, who recently announced he won't run for reelection.
Tillis and Shaheen lead the Senate NATO Observer Group, which facilitates work between Congress and NATO, and met Tuesday with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Capitol Hill.
Trump himself scoffed at the idea that 50 days is giving Putin too much time. The president suggested he may act more quickly if he does not see signs that Putin is taking steps toward ending the conflict.
'I don't think 50 days is very long and it could be shorter than that,' he said.
Ahead of Trump's announcement that he would impose a 100% tariff on Russia's trading partners if Putin doesn't negotiate an end to the war, bipartisan legislation proscribing even tougher sanctions on Moscow was gaining steam in the Senate.
The legislation, in part, calls for a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports. It would have an enormous impact on the economies of Brazil, China and India, which account for the vast majority of Russia's energy trade.
But Trump on Monday said 'at a certain point it doesn't matter' how high the tariff is set and that "100% is going to serve the same function.' Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was putting the legislation on hold following Trump's announcement.
Trump during his campaign described the conflict as a waste of U.S. taxpayer money and vowed to quickly end it on his first day back in office. He deflected when asked by a reporter on Tuesday if his tougher tone on Putin suggests he's now on Ukraine's side in the bloody conflict.
'I'm on nobody's side,' Trump said, adding this concern was for 'humanity.'
U.S. officials say they are still sorting through Ukraine's wish list of weaponry to determine what can be most quickly replaced after Trump announced an agreement for Europe to supply Ukraine with defensive munitions from existing stocks.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss arms transfers that have not yet been approved or completed, said Ukraine's requests for military equipment are roughly the same as they have been since the start of Russia's invasion. Those include air defenses like Patriot missiles and Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems, long-range missiles known as ATACMS and short- to medium-range ground-to-air missiles known as NASAMs, and assorted artillery, according to the officials.
Under the terms of the very rough agreement sketched out by Trump and Rutte on Monday, NATO members would ship billions of dollars of these weapons to Ukraine and then purchase replacements for them from the United States.
One official said some of the larger items — such as Patriots— could take up to five years to produce to deliver to the European donors, while smaller munitions like 155mm artillery shells can be produced on a much shorter timeline.
Trump has lately changed his once friendly tune toward Putin, whom he has long admired and whom he sided with publicly over his national security team during his first term when asked whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.
In recent weeks, Trump has chastised Putin for continuing his brutal assault on Ukrainian cities, even noting that the Russian leader 'talks nice and then he bombs everybody."
Trump has continued to blame his White House predecessors for Putin's 2022 invasion on neighboring Ukraine — a conflict he says would have never happened if he were reelected in 2020.
'He's fooled a lot of people,' Trump said Monday at the White House. 'He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me.'
In February, Trump expressed confidence that Putin 'will keep his word' on any deal to end the war in Ukraine. But in an interview with the BBC published Tuesday, when asked whether he trusted Putin, Trump paused before answering.
'I trust almost nobody, to be honest with you,' Trump said. 'I'm disappointed in him, but I'm not done with him. But I'm disappointed in him."
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UPI
7 minutes ago
- UPI
Rescission of public broadcast funding threatens rural areas
1 of 2 | The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) is seen in Washington, D.C., on May 27. The congressional rescissions bill passed by the U.S. House and Senate cuts more than $1 billion in funding for public broadcasting. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo July 30 (UPI) -- Publicly funded radio and television broadcasts bring news and emergency alerts to rural and underserved populations and the congressional rescissions bill will have some at risk of going off air. The U.S. Senate passed the rescissions bill earlier this month, peeling back about $9 billion in funding for public broadcasting, foreign aid and other services as recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency. The decision could lead to growing news deserts as rural communities lose what is often their main source of local coverage and critical information. For public broadcasting, the bill cuts the funding allocated for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. For fiscal year 2026, $535 million had been approved in the appropriations bill passed in March 2024. Earlier this year, Congress approved $535 million in funding for fiscal year 2027. Public broadcast funding is directed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is a private, nonprofit organization that was authorized by Congress to oversee government public media funds in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Funding is distributed to more than 1,500 public television and radio stations. "The vote by the U.S. Senate and House to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will have profound, lasting, negative consequences for every American," Patricia Harrison, CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said in a statement. "Without federal funding, many local public radio and television stations will be forced to shut down. Parents will have fewer high quality learning resources available for their children. Millions of Americans will have less trustworthy information about their communities, states, country, and world with which to make decisions about the quality of their lives." Government funding for public media is distributed to stations based on need. Stations that broadcast to rural, underserved and minority populations receive a higher portion of their funding from the CPB due in part to not having access to as many resources as those in highly populated areas. Tribal radio Tribal stations will be among those most deeply affected by the loss of federal funding. KSUT Tribal Radio broadcasts to the Four Corners region of the Southwest. It has served listeners in Northwest New Mexico, Southwest Colorado, Southeast Utah and Northeast Arizona since it was founded in 1976 by the Southern Ute Tribe. Four tribes are served by the station as well: the Southern Ute Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Jicarilla Apache Nation in Northern New Mexico and the Navajo Nation in northeast Arizona and Northwest New Mexico. Much of KSUT's coverage area is already considered a news desert -- an area that lacks adequate local news coverage. Each of the states KSUT broadcasts to have lost at least 15% of their local newspapers since 2004, according to The Expanding News Desert project at the University of North Carolina's Hussman School of Journalism and Media. "We chose with the limited resources we have for original reporting to focus on indigenous affairs. That certainly is not a service that folks get of regional news and information on Native American issues," Tami Graham, KSUT executive director, told UPI. About 20% of KSUT's budget, about $330,000, comes from federal funding, Graham said. With that funding source gone, the station is planning to fundraise rapidly to maintain its level of service. Due to its rural coverage area, it does not have access to the kinds of philanthropic resources that stations in larger markets have." "It's a double whammy losing that funding and not being in major markets," Graham said. "We have great listeners who are very supportive. We're looking for where we can shave and cut costs. We're trying our best to avoid any major staffing cuts." KSUT's goal is to raise about $600,000 in the next two years to backfill the lost federal funding. Fundraising, listener membership, business underwriters and grant funding outside of the federal government are four revenue resources it will lean on. "How we survive in the meantime is resilience. We're going to survive," Graham said. "There will be stations that will go dark. I have no doubt about it. Hopefully that will just be temporary." Emergency broadcasts Public media is oftentimes the only source of emergency alerts and critical information in rural areas. State and local alerts are pushed through public radio and television broadcasts through the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts. Public media stations were crucial in Southern California during the wildfires in January. According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 111 Wireless Emergency Alerts were shared with more than 18 million people in affected and at-risk areas. In 2024, there was a 30% increase over 2023 in Wireless Emergency Alerts issued by federal, state and local authorities. Public radio is particularly crucial in rural regions where cell and Internet service is unreliable if not completely unavailable. "Turning on your radio can be a lifeline," Graham said. "Old-fashion radio in a lot of these tribal communities is really important because they know that's how they're going to get their information if it's a rapidly developing wildfire or COVID information. We were hugely important to communities about what restrictions there were on tribal lands related to COVID." Wildfires are the most persistent threat in the KSUT coverage area. "There's wildfires happening now in our region," Graham said. "We pride ourselves on keeping any updates around evacuation notices and road closures on our airwaves. We put a lot of energy into making sure we're taking the information we're finding and then relaying that to the degree that we can for those folks who may not have the ability to gather that information for themselves because of a lack of connectivity." Viktor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania, told UPI cuts to public media are likely to cost lives. "Many rural communities are going to lose emergency alert systems," he said. It's not hyperbolic to say these cuts will at least indirectly lead to people losing their lives." 'An already vulnerable system' Pickard said a significant percentage of local public media stations are likely to shut down in the next year with a disproportionate number of them serving rural areas. The Trump administration may oversee this significant blow to public broadcasting but partisan attacks on the system are not new. "The budgetary concerns are really a red herring," Pickard said. "It's much more ideological." Republican opposition to public media can be traced back to its inception, according to Pickard. President Richard Nixon was critical of PBS and its content. Republican administrations that followed shared at least some of Nixon's ire, seeking to cut funding, claiming public broadcasts held a liberal bias. "Every democratic country in the world does it though," Pickard said of funding public media. However, the United States lags behind other countries in its financial support. According to Pickard, the United States spends about $1.50 per person on public media funding. Great Britain spends more than $100 per person. "We've always impoverished our public media system in the United States compared to other media systems in the world," Pickard said. The funding model is designed, in part, to keep publicly-funded media organizations independent from government influence. It has also made organizations vulnerable. "The system was already vulnerable," Pickard said. "We're already a global outlier compared to how public media systems are funded around the world. In many ways, [President Donald] Trump is exploiting an already vulnerable system." Pickard worries that the further degradation of the news media ecosystem will ultimately be a major blow to U.S. democracy. "We have these natural experiments on what happens when a local community loses news institutions," he said. "People are less likely to vote. They're less physically engaged. They're less politically knowledgeable. There are higher levels of extremism and higher levels of corruption." Pickard cited studies by the Democracy Fund, a nonprofit foundation with the mission of supporting democracy. Senior director Joshua Stearns penned a compilation of more than 50 studies that indicate journalism, especially local coverage, increases engagement with policy. "When people lose local media, they are no longer well informed," Pickard said. "That's a critical area alongside losing emergency alert systems. We have these news deserts that are rapidly expanding all across the country. In many cases, public media are the last institutions standing that could provide some level of news and information."
UPI
7 minutes ago
- UPI
The Jeffrey Epstein saga: a new national security threat?
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman speaks during a news conference about the arrest of American financier Jeffrey Epstein in New York on July 8, 2019, on sex trafficking charges, File photo by Jason Szenes July 30 (UPI) -- The sordid saga of the long dead and convicted predator Jeffrey Epstein not only poses a threat to Donald Trump's presidency, but it also conceivably threatens the credibility of the U.S. political system. Yet, an even more sinister and potentially dangerous threat lurks for the United States and its friends. The two threats are linked, ironically, by Epstein's ghost. Trump's MAGA base is furious that the promised Epstein files have not been released. What's worse is that that Attorney General Pam Bondi apparently informed Trump his name was in the file -- high-test fuel for that blaze. And, now, possibly to deflect attention, Trump and his director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, have accused former President Barack Obama of treason by interfering in the 2016 election with Russian help. In a nation as politically divided as America, any spark could ignite a political firestorm. Beijing, Moscow and others with malicious intent are intensely watching this saga. One conclusion must be that even greater opportunities exist today to interfere in United States and Western politics, not just exploiting this debacle. More importantly, creating new crises that manipulate and fracture political and social cohesion is a formidable danger. The U.K.'s Brexit is an example of manipulation. In the effort to withdraw from the European Union -- the Leave campaign -- former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his key adviser, Dominic Cummings determined that 1 million or so Britons lacked party affiliation. Then, using social media, this group was targeted with Leave propaganda generated by Cummings. That swung the vote to leave. Cummings was not alone. Substantial evidence exists that Moscow helped influence Brexit and the Leave campaign to weaken the Atlantic Alliance. And Moscow also interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections. Consider the infamous Steele Dossier. Among the allegations, the dossier accused Trump of lewd sexual behavior in Moscow. Suspend reality and imagine Vladimir Putin intervened to help elect Hillary Clinton as president in 2016. Following Cummings' lead, Russian trolls would have filled the Internet with deep-fake photos and invented stories exaggerating or inventing Trump's misconduct. One wonders who might have been elected 45th president. China and Moscow have significant interests in manipulating and fracturing American and Western cohesion. Putin is focused on winning in Ukraine, minimizing sanctions, and in the process, weakening Western solidarity. 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The difference is that these effects could be even more destructive. Regarding infrastructure, Israeli and Ukrainian infiltration of two societies with seeming control of their borders and people to launch surprise attacks deep into Iran and Russia underscores how potentially vulnerable military bases and installations are to drones. And even more susceptible to drone attacks are electric generation and power grids, which could cause nationwide disruption. Kinetic attacks on military and civilian infrastructure are fraught with risk. But perceived threats are not. The strategy would be to use a variant of Orson Welles' provocation of massive public and psychological panic in his radio broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938. Consider future Wellesian scenarios on steroids that threaten catastrophic events or apply fake news reports of spreading epidemics or environmental, financial and other disasters to induce fear and disruption. Concocting new and credible conspiracy theories would be part of this disruptive strategy. None of this is new. The USSR used the Comintern, Cominform and KGB to misinform, disinform, disrupt and provoke. The United States and the U.K. employed similar techniques principally against the Nazis in World War II. However, today is different because social and other media can turn these activities into political weapons of mass disruption. The United States will survive Epstein. Against determined adversaries who intend to create and exploit new political fractures, are the United States and the West ready? That answer is sadly no. Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Best Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.
USA Today
7 minutes ago
- USA Today
Texas redistricting: Republicans propose new map, Democrats try to counter
WASHINGTON − An ongoing effort by Republicans to redraw Texas' congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections continues to agitate Democrats across the country, as they search for ways to block or counter an initiative sought by President Donald Trump. The White House has urged Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state Republicans to advance on a rare mid-decade redistricting, with the hope that shifting boundaries could help the party pick up as many as five seats in next year's race for control of the U.S. House. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and the GOP are hoping the boost can help them hang onto their razor-thin lower chamber majority during the final two years of Trump's second term and amid the 2028 race for the White House. Texas Democrats balked when Abbott agreed to add redistricting to their to-do list for a 30-day special session that began July 21 in Austin. Now, liberal lawmakers are crying foul with blue state governors threatening tit-for-tat responses and Texas Democrats weighing their own limited protest options as the GOP seeks to make major changes to the critical voter boundary lines that make up the nation's second largest congressional delegation. Here's the latest to know on the controversial redistricting effort happening in the Lone Star State. What could a new map look like? Texas Republicans released their proposed new map on July 30. Ahead of the official release, Punchbowl News first reported that the anticipated redraw would shift district boundaries around Dallas, Houston, Austin and the Rio Grande Valley. There would still be 38 total seats in the Texas delegation under the new maps - leaving it second only to California's 52 seats. But five Texas seats would be redrawn in a bid that Republican envision giving their candidates a leg up with more GOP voters. Democrats who at risk of losing their spot in Congress include Reps. Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez and Marc Veasey, according to Punchbowl. Democrats charge partisan law violation The rare push to redraw the boundary lines has led Democratic senators to accuse Trump administration officials of breaking a decades-old law limiting executive branch employees from engaging in partisan activities − such as advocating for a state's redistricting in order to benefit their political party. In a letter to the Office of Special Counsel, California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, along with Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse and Illinois' Dick Durbin, called for an investigation into members of Trump's White House and Justice Department, accusing them of breaking the Hatch Act. "The purpose of this redistricting push is to defeat Democratic Members of Congress and elect Republicans to affect the balance of political party power in the 120th Congress," the senators wrote. "While such goals are appropriate for a political party organization, they are not appropriate for executive branch officials," they added, "especially at the Department of Justice which must take greater steps to ensure it acts with impartiality." The Hatch Act does not apply to the president or vice president. Hakeem Jeffries took a trip to Texas House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, made a trip to Texas July 30, the same day Republicans released their proposed map. While there, Politico reported that Jeffries planned to meet with Rep. Al Green, a Houston lawmaker whose district could be caught in the crosshairs of a major map shake up. "We understand that this is all hands on deck for us in the Democratic Party," Green told Politico. Jeffries has been vocal in his opposition to the redistricting plans, saying in a July 15 press conference, "Texas Republicans are likely going to continue to act like political punks and bend the knee to Donald Trump's extreme agenda." Later, he told CNN, regarding Democrats' response: "Let me just simply say the maps in New York are not as fair as they could be." Redistricting arms race could ensue Jeffries is not the only blue state lawmaker proposing an equal and opposite reaction to Texas. Democrats coast-to-coast have promised a full-scale counterattack, should the Lone Star State move forward with redistricting. "We're not going to be sitting back with one hand tied behind our back while Republicans try to undermine the voices of the American people," Rep. Suzan DelBene, a Democrat from Washington and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told reporters at a meeting July 23. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has suggested a redistricting in his state to offset Republican actions. (But unlike in Texas where legislators decide district lines, Newsom does face a major obstacle in the form of a bipartisan redistricting commission, which oversees California's maps.) The response from Democrats has enticed other Republican-controlled states to potentially jump in too. Missouri Republicans are pondering a plan to give their party a geographical leg up, and legislatures in other states such as Florida and New Hampshire have the ability to reevaluate maps like Texas. Texas Democrats eye leaving the state Back in Texas, Democrats have a limited number of options to counter a GOP-controlled state House and Senate. Their primary tool is a controversial and seldom used move to flee the state and break the quorum necessary to proceed in the legislative session. State Democrats last used the measure in 2021 to protest new voting restrictions. After that episode, in which representatives halted operations for 38 days, Republicans approved a $500 a day fine for breaking quorum. The monetary punishment could be enough to give Democrats pause about leaving the state this time. However, the Texas Tribune reported deep-pocked Democratic donors are ready to assist and enable a potential walkout.
